


Rule the World

by delires



Category: Digimon - All Media Types
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-10-23
Updated: 2021-01-01
Packaged: 2021-03-08 20:27:01
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 26,605
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27162469
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/delires/pseuds/delires
Summary: “What are we doing?” Yamato says, and Taichi lifts his eyebrows in question.“In our relationship? Or in general?”Or: why being friends with benefits is so much harder than saving humanity.
Relationships: Ishida Yamato | Matt Ishida/Original Female Character(s), Ishida Yamato | Matt Ishida/Original Male Character(s), Ishida Yamato | Matt Ishida/Yagami Taichi | Tai Kamiya, Yagami Taichi | Tai Kamiya/Original Character(s)
Comments: 46
Kudos: 81





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> RIGHT. This... is something I started writing a while back and then got blocked with because my headcanons were just spiralling out into chaos.
> 
> I am hoping that posting this first part might finally kick me up the arse enough to write the rest. If not, then I am very sorry in advance for leading you all on, TaiYama Club. Please know that I love you, though.
> 
> And at least there is some sex for you here. So there’s that.

_September_

  
There’s a scrap of a beat going round and round in Yamato’s head. It’s been plaguing him all day. With some work it might make a good baseline, but right now it’s nothing. What he needs is a hook: a way into the melody. 

Students in the class are getting up and going to the front of the room in turn, but that’s all happening on a different plane of existence. Yamato started tuning the lesson out ages ago. It’s homeroom; nothing useful ever comes from homeroom.

And then, suddenly, there they are: the first shreds of a melody. Yamato pivots his pen between his fingers, puts the nib to paper and starts quickly scribbling notations down in the margins of his exercise book.

Until a hand slaps down onto his desk, directly in the middle of his book.

“Well, check it out,” Taichi says. “I got everybody’s wet dream.”

Yamato glares from Taichi’s hand, up along his arm to his stupid face. 

It must be obvious that he has no idea what’s happening, because Taichi takes it upon himself to explain: “We’re mentors, buddy. I just pulled your name out of the hat.”

That rings a bell: Yamato remembers their teacher talking about it last week. They are halfway through their last year of high school and are facing final exams and decisions that will affect the rest of their lives. The school’s solution? Pairing them all up with a fellow student, who also knows nothing about anything, and leaving them to coach one another through the inevitable emotional carnage that the next few months will bring.

Taichi lifts his hand from the desk to reveal a slip of paper with Yamato’s name printed on it.

Yamato stares at the familiar characters for less than a second before he sticks his hand straight into the air to get the teacher’s attention.

“Sensei,” he says loudly. “This isn’t going to work. We need to switch.”

Mr Ito pauses in holding out the plastic bowl full of named slips to the next student and stares at him. 

“No switching, Yamato. I explained very clearly at the start that all mentor partners would be allocated randomly. That’s the entire point of the exercise. To work with someone you wouldn’t normally work with and get a new perspective on some of the issues you’re facing.”

“We already know how to work together,” Yamato says, ignoring the way that Taichi is now leaning casually against his desk. 

“Then you’ll be two steps ahead of everyone else, won’t you?” the teacher tells him. “Taichi, take your seat.”

Yamato inhales through his teeth as Taichi pulls out the chair beside him with a screech of metal. He scribbles an angry line through his half-completed notation. The last few notes have already left him.

“Sorry,” Taichi says, peering at the scribbles. “I didn’t know you were writing.”

One glance at Taichi’s face tells Yamato that he’s being sincere, so he drops his hackles and slumps back in his chair.

“I wasn’t. Not really. It was just a thing in my head.”

He taps the end of his pen rhythmically against the desk – back to nothing but the beat. Taichi watches the movement and then kicks back too, tilting his chair onto its back legs.

“Mentors. What bullshit,” he says. 

There are questions written on the board at the front of the room. Yamato tries to read them, but immediately glazes over. Still tapping his pen, he turns to look at Taichi. His tie is so loose that it’s practically falling off him, and his shirt is buttoned crooked – thrown hastily back on after soccer at lunchtime. His lopsided shirt collar shows a patch of tanned collarbone.

“What are we doing?” Yamato says, and Taichi lifts his eyebrows in question.

“In our relationship? Or in general?”

“In the exercise,” Yamato says, enunciating extra clearly, because the issue of their relationship is not a mess he wants to get into right now – or ever, in fact. “I didn’t listen.”

“Huh. I noticed.” Taichi reaches out and stills Yamato’s tapping hand. He doesn’t move his fingers afterwards. He leaves it up to Yamato to be the one to pull away, which he does, without hesitation. 

Taichi sighs at that and rocks back further in his chair. “I think we’re supposed to fix each other.”

“You’re beyond fixing,” Yamato says, resisting the urge to kick the tilting legs of Taichi’s chair.

“Excuse you,” Taichi says, as he reaches up and folds his arms behind his head, making his position even more precarious. “You’re the psycho here. If we had the whole of high school, we wouldn’t even begin to scratch the surface of your issues.”

Taichi’s eyes widen as the chair jerks suddenly beneath him. His reflexes are honed, though, and he manages to swing his arms down and grab the edge of the table just in time to stop himself tumbling to the floor. 

Yamato retracts his foot. So close.

“Hey,” Taichi says, glaring at him.

“You make it too easy,” Yamato says, reaching for the sheet of instructions that he’s been ignoring on his desk.

Really, though, the opposite is true. Taichi makes his life anything but easy.

*

They have an arrangement. That’s the only reason Yamato answers the phone when it rings with Taichi’s name at midnight on Friday, when he is already in bed and asleep. If it were anyone else, he would have thrown the phone across the room. Rehearsals have been intense this week and he is bone-tired. 

“Hello,” he says, voice rough with sleep and too much singing.

“Hey,” Taichi says, and from just that one word, Yamato knows that he’s drunk, which means that this is immediately way too much effort.

“What do you want? I’m sleeping.”

“Nice voice. You sound like such a vamp,” Taichi says, and Yamato clears his throat, to get rid of the husk. 

“How much did you drink?” he asks, as he leans over to switch on the lamp beside his bed. 

“Too much.”

“No shit.” 

“Can I see you?” 

Yamato hears the grin in Taichi’s voice, can picture it exactly: the gloss of his teeth, that slight dimple that appears in one cheek. 

“I don’t know,” he says. “Where are you?”

“Roppongi. I think. Yeah.”

“I’m not coming there.”

“We’re getting a taxi to Akira’s house. In like…” Taichi trails off, moving away from the phone. Then returns. “What?” 

“I didn’t say anything.”

“Five minutes. In like, five minutes,” Taichi says, reconnecting with his train of thought. He grins again. “Come. I’ll make it worth your while.”

“You’d better,” Yamato says, and ends the call.

*

Akira’s place is literally down the street from Yamato’s apartment, so he waits a bit before he leaves. It takes no time for him to comb his fingers through his hair, stamp his feet into his boots and then walk over there. 

He arrives just as the taxi is pulling away from the building and leans on the buzzer to be let in through the gates.

Akira is waiting for him at the apartment door. He’s the soccer team’s goalkeeper: tall, long and agile. Stick a pair of glasses on him and he’d look a little like Jyou. If Jyou worked out and had a buzzcut.

“Oh,” Akira says. “I thought you were the pizza.” 

Yamato doesn’t think that remark requires a response, so he doesn’t give one. He just steps into the apartment and kicks off his boots, ignoring the way that Akira’s eyes trail up and down, taking him in from legs to ass. It’s not the first time Yamato’s seen him looking.

“Is Tai here? Or not?” he says, straightening up.

Akira blinks at him, then turns and yells Taichi’s name over his shoulder. 

Taichi appears in a thunder of socked feet on tatami, wearing the exact smile Yamato was picturing. “Hey,” he says, seizing Yamato by the hand, dragging him away from Akira and through to the kitchen, where a dishevelled collection of soccer players are blearily leaning against counters and cracking open cans of beer.

“You want a drink? What do you want?” Taichi says, way too fast, because alcohol always seems to speed him up instead of slowing him down.

“Looks like there’s only one choice,” Yamato says, reaching for a can of Asahi. He pops it open and manages to take one gulp before he notices that Tai is staring at him. “What?”

“I’m glad you came,” Taichi says.

On the inside, Yamato feels a flutter, but on the outside, he just rolls his eyes. “You’re so drunk,” he says.

“Pizza! Pizza’s here!” Akira yells from the hallway.

All around them, drunk soccer players spring to attention. They drift towards the kitchen doorway like mindless zombies, crowding the entrance even as Akira is trying to struggle through the door carrying pizza boxes piled as high as his head. 

Yamato is watching in alarm as the stack starts to tilt, when he feels Tai grab his hand again. 

“Come on,” Taichi says, and pulls him out of the room, using the commotion of the crumbling pizza tower to help them melt away from the group completely unnoticed.

The room they wind up in looks like it belongs to a teenage girl. There are posters of boy bands on the walls and stacks of shoujo manga piled on the desk. Akira has a sister, Yamato remembers vaguely. Older than them. Probably away at college by now. 

Most importantly, the room has a lock on the door, which Tai slides into place before he pushes Yamato up against the wall and kisses him.

They are used to this: hooking up in short snatches of time, often just out of sight and earshot, making every moment count and always, always, getting straight to the point, because there’s never any time to mess around.

That’s why Tai’s hands fall straight to Yamato’s belt and start unbuckling, even as Yamato is reaching sideways to set his practically full can of beer down on the desk of some girl he’s never met.

“I’ve been thinking about you all night,” Taichi says in between kisses, speaking softly against Yamato’s jaw.

“Sure you have,” Yamato says, tilting his head, to let Taichi reach his throat with his teeth and tongue. 

“Really,” Taichi says, because this is what he does: play acts that what is happening between them is a lot more than it is, more than what he wants it to be. 

In the heat of the moment, Taichi is always so convincing. Yamato finds the pretence exhausting.

“Well, I wasn’t thinking about you,” he says, pushing away from the wall and walking Taichi backwards, towards the bed. “I was asleep.”

Taichi is grinning at him as they climb onto the bed, stripping the shirts off each other so they can run their hands over each other’s bodies.

“But I’m always thinking about you, babe,” Taichi says, sliding his palms down inside Yamato’s jeans to cup both cheeks of his ass and pull him down more firmly against him. “About the noises you make…”

Yamato can’t help but gasp as the move presses his denim-clad erection against the muscle of Taichi’s thigh. 

“Yeah. That’s the one,” Taichi smiles. “I’m thinking about your lips, your tongue…” He reaches a palm up to Yamato’s face and runs his thumb over Yamato’s cheekbone, just below his eye, “these beautiful eyes.”

They have both fallen still, staring at each other. Yamato can hear his own breathing in the quiet room. He has to snap out of it.

Very deliberately, he rolls his hips, grinding down against where he can feel that Taichi is already rock hard in his pants. At the same time, he puts both hands on the other boy’s shoulders, pushing him down against the bed, trapping him in place.

“You need to shut the fuck up. I didn’t come over here to listen to you talk.”

Taichi licks his lips, unable to stop grinning, even as he is groaning and canting his hips up, pressing into the motions that Yamato is making with his. 

“Aye aye, captain.” 

He tightens his grip on Yamato’s waist and then, without warning, flips them both sideways, tumbling Yamato off of him and rolling over so that their positions are reversed, with Yamato on his back and Taichi on top, holding him down. 

Yamato is strong enough to fight it if he wanted to, they’re still an even match after all these years, but Taichi is drunk and full of energy and, although Yamato would never admit it out loud, it’s kind of hot to let him take the lead. 

So he just looks up with his lips parted, holding eye contact in the way he knows Taichi likes, and reaches one hand between them, sliding it into Taichi’s underwear and curling his fingers around his cock.

Taichi moans, his grip tightening around Yamato’s shoulders, before he is scrabbling to return the touch, fighting to tug open the flies of Yamato’s jeans and get his hand inside.

“Why does everything you wear have to be so damn tight?”

“You like it,” Yamato points out.

“I do like it, yeah.”

Taichi’s strong thighs flex as he kneels up and yanks the clinging denim down around Yamato’s ass, then reaches back, seizes Yamato’s wrists and yanks him quickly up into a sitting position, so they are pressed close, face to face, one of Taichi’s hands falling to the small of Yamato’s back to support him.

The movement is kind of dizzying, but that’s what sex with Taichi is always like. Fast, surprising. Really fucking good.

“Shit,” Yamato gasps, as Taichi finally gets his hand on his dick and squeezes just so.

“Yeah, baby, that’s right,” Taichi says, laying kisses on Yamato’s cheek, as he starts to work his hand up and down.

Yamato grits his teeth, panting, turning away from Taichi’s lips. “Don’t call me that.”

Taich just lifts his free hand and uses it to turn Yamato’s face back again, so he can kiss him on the lips this time.

“I’ll call you what I want to. Freedom of speech,” he says, in between the kisses, “Baby.”

There it is again: that dangerous little flutter, deep in Yamato’s chest. 

He pushes the feeling away, automatic, and makes things dirty instead, opening his mouth to turn their kisses messy, gripping Taichi hard by the back of the neck, and speeding up the strokes of his hand until Taichi is squirming against him, whining into their kisses as their tongues slide together.

They are both close now. No more teasing. Taichi has finally stopped running his mouth. They don’t need to talk when they get to this point. It’s all business, time to cut the shit and just give each other what they need.

Yamato bows his head and rests his forehead against Taichi’s. They are both panting, arms working to maintain the rhythm, and then Yamato can feel himself coming, his dick throbbing in Taichi’s hand, and there is sticky-wet running over his knuckles, Taichi’s come spilling down his wrist. 

As Yamato comes down from it, he finds that his right hand, the one not wrapped around Taichi’s cock, has become joined with Taichi’s left. Their fingers are tangled together, holding tight.

For a split second he feels awkward, knowing he has let his guard down. But Taichi makes things easy, like he always does.

“Thanks, babe, that was good,” he says, matter-of-fact, like he’s commenting on a meal Yamato has cooked. 

He lets go of Yamato’s hand and leans sideways off the bed, to snatch a handful of Kleenex from a box that conveniently happens to be right there on the floor, just as if someone had placed it there in preparation for this moment. 

Yamato lets the pet name slide this time. He accepts some of the tissues and cleans himself up.

Taichi is already stretching and standing up, somehow just as full of energy as he was before they started. 

Their shirts are in a tangle at the end of the bed. He pulls his own shirt over his head and tosses Yamato’s to him. Then he heads to the desk and takes a big gulp from the can of beer that Yamato left there earlier.

“So,” he says, as Yamato is still fastening his jeans. “You want some pizza?”

*

Out in the kitchen, Taichi elbows his way right back into the crowd of his friends. He’s soon shouting along with them, laughing at things with his mouth full of pizza.

Yamato loiters at the edge of the room, quietly drinking the last of his beer. 

At first, he pretends not to notice when Akira sidles up to him and leans there against the kitchen counter. But he can feel the other boy’s eyes on him, so after a minute, he looks at him and says, “Can I help you?”

“What’s the deal with you guys?” Akira jerks his head in Taichi’s direction, and Yamato almost laughs in his face, because he is absolutely the last person who would be able to answer that question.

“I don’t know,” he says, wondering distantly why he is answering honestly, instead of just telling this dude to go fuck himself, like he usually would.

“Aren’t you guys a thing? Boyfriends?”

Yamato shakes his head. “Nope. Not a thing.”

“Huh,” says Akira.

“Yep.”

“Does that mean I can ask you out?”

“What?” Yamato looks at him in surprise. 

“I think you’re really hot. We should hang out sometime,” Akira says. “I could buy you dinner.”

“I don’t need you to buy me dinner,” Yamato says.

It’s not like he hasn’t noticed this guy noticing him, but he was expecting him to maybe make some stupid pass at a party, which he could knee him in the balls for. Not this.

Akira chuckles. He holds both palms up, a gesture of peace. To be honest, he’s kind of hot, too. His hands are large, long-fingered. Strong wrists. In the middle of one of his eyebrows, there is a tiny hole - a piercing that’s always empty, never appropriate for school or soccer. Just a mark of past rebellion. Yamato can relate to that. He’s tempted to reach for his own earlobe, feel the dent of the piercing he has there.

“It’s late. I should split,” Yamato says, setting his empty beer can down and pushing away from the counter. 

“Cool,” Akira says, with a careless shrug and a little smile, that’s actually kind of cute. “I’ll try you again some other time.”

Yamato gets hit on a lot, but not often by one of the most popular guys in school, someone else who can match his own social standing, right at the top of the pack. Unless you count Taichi, of course. He’s actually kind of flattered. But that doesn’t mean he’s agreeing to anything.

“You might need to clean up your sister’s room or something by the way,” he says, as he’s walking backwards towards the door.

It’s kind of bitchy, but like, as if this guy is coming on to him right here, right now, practically within earshot of Taichi — not that Taichi seems to have noticed at all.

Yamato is already in the hallway, lacing up his boots when Taichi appears. His mouth is still full of pizza, but he’s chewing quickly trying to swallow 

“Hey. You’re leaving me without saying bye? What’s that about?”

“You seemed busy,” Yamato says. He finishes tying his laces and straightens up. “It’s a booty call. I get how it works. We were done. Now I can go.”

“Stop,” Taichi says, stepping down into the porch in his socks. “You’re never a booty call.”

“You called me and asked me to come here just so we could fuck. That’s the literal definition,” Yamato says. “It’s chill, though.”

“That doesn’t mean we don’t say goodbye,” Taichi insists, ever the goddamned hero. 

Like he’s trying to prove that point, he reaches out and takes Yamato by the wrist, fingertips pressing against his pulse, and uses the grip to tug him the few inches closer he needs to kiss him on the lips. 

Yamato allows it for a moment, then pushes him away. 

“Get off me. You taste like pepperoni,” he says.

“Well you’re a fucking riot, aren’t you? I didn’t even have pepperoni.” 

Come back to mine, Yamato wants to say, suddenly. Screw those guys. Come stay the night with me and prove it’s not just a booty call, then.

But he swallows the suggestion away and puts his hand on the latch, ready to open the door. “Are we done?”

He looks back at Taichi, who is still standing there in his socks, watching Yamato thoughtfully. 

“Why do we always still have to act like we hate each other?” he asks. 

When Yamato doesn’t say anything to that, he shrugs and says, “Yeah, guess we’re done.”

“See you at school, okay?” Yamato says, opening the door and stepping out into the night. 

Taichi nods, gripping the edge of the door, ready to pull it shut behind him. “Later,” he says.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I don't know. Here is some more of this.
> 
> This part only: crossdressing and some super duper light d/s stuff... if those things are a hard nope for you!

_September_

Taichi stares at the sheet of text in front of him, eyes unfocused. 

The classroom is way too hot. There’s a tantalising breeze leaking through the half-open window beside them. It’s September, but it still smells like summer: fresh and raw and ready for ecstasy. Being cooped up is brutal. Taichi wants to take Yamato by the hand and drag him out of here. It’s the perfect day to be kissing him outside in the sunlight.

Instead. They’re stuck in class. From across the room, somebody farts. Loudly. There’s laughter. Mr Ito slams a book down in anger. 

“Screw this place, man,” Taichi says, out loud.

Yamato looks over from where he has been staring out the window. There is a tiny smudge of bruise on his throat, left there by Taichi’s teeth, two nights ago. The memory of pressing him into girl-scented sheets in the room at Akira’s house springs to life and Taichi has to concentrate hard to force it away. This is not the time, and definitely not the place for a boner.

He seizes the sheet of instructions and studies them with renewed vigour. 

“You want to start with this visualisation exercise?” he says, scanning the words quickly.

Yamato doesn’t respond. His eyes are distant — big and blue and catching the sunlight from the windows. He has his hand at his mouth, tip of his thumb resting on his bottom lip.

Taichi kicks him under the table. Not hard. Just enough to jolt him away from wherever he’s gone to.

“What?” Yamato says, irritated, dropping his hand.

“Hey, your head’s not in the game, I get it.” Taichi shakes the sheet of instruction pointedly. “But, like, maybe pretend that you’re on the ball just for a second.”

“Are you talking about sports right now?” Yamato says, frowning, still dreamy, probably only half listening over whatever music is playing in his head. 

Taichi wants to climb into his lap, straddle his thighs, take his face in both hands, make sure he has his undivided attention. Instead, he clears his throat and sits up straighter. He holds up both hands and touches his middle fingers to his thumbs, yoga style.

“Five years from now. Where do you see yourself. We have to visualise,” he says.

“I don’t think you need to do the mudra.”

“What?”

Yamato’s eyes are sharp again. Back online. He copies Taichi’s hand gesture with a graceful flick of his wrists. “Shuni mudra. This is called.”

Taichi stares at him. “Why do you know that?”

Yamato shrugs, which just makes Taichi want to kiss him more. 

“Stop making me do all the work. Read this,” Taichi says, dropping his ‘mudra’, apparently, and reaching across to jab a finger at the first paragraph on the sheet in front of Yamato.

“God damn it,” Yamato says. But he looks down at the paper, and Taichi knows that he reads to the end, because he soon looks up and says: “This is stupid.”

“Close your eyes,” Taichi tells him. 

Yamato scowls. Then obeys. Which is pretty much how it always goes. 

“Put yourself somewhere you want to be,” Taichi says. “Describe to me what you see.”

“I don’t know.”

“Come on. Get your mudra on.”

Yamato sighs. After a moment, he turns his hands over on the desk, forming loose circles with thumb and finger. 

Taichi finds himself looking again at that little bruise, just above the line of Yamato’s collar. This time he doesn’t bother trying not to stare. He can still remember how that patch of skin tastes.

“Where are you?” Taichi asks.

“A beach,” Yamato says, his voice quiet, keeping the words private from the bustle of the classroom.

That’s unexpected. Taichi had been assuming that he’d hear something about being on stage. Bright lights. Cheering fans. _Hello, Tokyo!_ But he’s adaptable. He’s good at pivoting on expectations.

“Okay,” he says, keeping his voice level. Encouraging.

“I can hear the waves,” Yamato says, relaxing into it. “It’s nighttime. I can see the moon reflected in the water. The stars. The sand...looks like silver.” 

He pauses there, opens his eyes. Taichi remembers to breathe. “I don’t think this is what Sensei had in mind,” Yamato says.

“It doesn’t sound much like a career,” Taichi agrees. “I like it, though.” He closes his own eyes, licks his lips, puts himself on Yamato’s beach. 

Thailand, he thinks. Hat Rin. When there’s a full moon, the beach explodes into one big rave. Lasers and glowsticks and pulsing music. Taichi went there once on a family vacation. He was thirteen at the time. Too young to do anything more than look down on the distant partying from the hotel balcony, a neon tangle of mystery and excitement, far out of his reach.

But now he can put himself right at the heart of it, lost in the crowd and the music, bright painted stripes on his cheeks, at home in all that happiness. 

“Moon’s full,” he says, “Air’s still warm. But it’s late. Really late. Like nearly morning. There’s that slight glow on the horizon, you know? When dawn’s just about to break.”

Taichi cracks one eyelid open, to take a peek. Yamato has his eyes closed again, listening to his voice.

“There’s music. A big party,” he continues. “People dancing. Kind of wild. It’s been a long night. And now you’ve broken off. To stand there and stare at the waves.” 

When Yamato blinks his eyes open again, their gazes lock. 

“Peace out of chaos,” he says and Taichi feels a kind of internal thud, like something hitting him hard in the chest. But there’s nothing attacking him. There’s just the too-hot classroom, and the air from the windows and the sound of the bell ringing down the corridor.

They stare at each other until Yamato looks away and seizes up his pen. “That is a great lyric,” he says, scribbling fast, leaving Taichi still trying to shake away the scent of the sea and the thrum of the bass.

*

  
_July_

If Taichi had to tell someone (like probably a therapist, in the future) when things with Yamato changed, he can give an exact date for that: 29 July 2006.

It’s a weekend, so there’s a party – there’s normally a party, and Taichi normally gets to go to it, if he feels like it, because Taichi normally gets invited to everything. 

That’s not him trying to blow his own trumpet; it’s just what happens. He knows a lot of people, gets on with most of them. By official definition: he’s popular. 

And this weekend is a big one. Sakamoto Michiko, undisputed queen of the school, is turning eighteen. Her parents have rented out some bar in the city that’s apparently going to be a mini-nightclub for the evening. Word is that there will even be alcohol there, without anyone having to sneak it in, because it’s a private party and Michiko’s parents are liberal as fuck.

There’s also a guest list and a dress code. The guest list is anyone at the school who’s hot enough or cool enough. The dress code is genderswap. No drag; no entry. It’s just edgy enough to feel elitist, and just enough of a challenge that it will weed out anyone who’s not quite hot or cool enough to pull it off.

Of course Taichi has to go. Yamato too. Not only because it’s likely to be the biggest party of the entire year, but because both of them have dated Michiko in the past (she’s the kind of girl who likes to tick boys like them off her list – and not the kind of girl you turn down) and it would look terminally bad for either of them not to show. 

So that’s how Taichi ends up standing outside Yamato’s apartment on a Saturday night, wearing a sixties-style shift dress, a pair of heeled go-go boots and a full face of drag makeup. 

No wig. He’s got more than enough hair.

He already got some pretty crazy looks on the walk over, but none of those compare to the look that Yamato gives him when he opens the door. That’s something that Taichi will probably be telling a therapist about one day too.

“Wow,” Yamato says, a mixture of amusement and horror, which hey, isn’t that exactly what every guy is going for when they get dressed for the night?

“What the hell is this?” Taichi asks, waving a hand up and down to indicate what Yamato’s wearing, which at first glance appears to be a big denim jacket and not much else.

“I’m Debbie Harry,” Yamato says, holding open the jacket to reveal a one-shouldered black dress and, ok, pretty impressive thigh-high black boots. 

“Who’s that?”

“From Blondie.”

“Is that a band?”

“Yes, Tai. Ugh, are you joking? Honestly, sometimes I don’t know why I’m friends with you still.” 

Yamato steps out onto the walkway and pulls the door shut behind him, pushing Taichi to one side so there’s room for him to turn around and lock the door. 

“You’re friends with me because I’m the kind of guy who will walk across town in a dress and heels to meet you, so that you don’t have to do that shit on your own,” Taichi says, folding his arms.

“Please. I bet you loved the attention. And it’s a ten-minute walk, so don’t be such a princess about it,” Yamato says. But when he finishes with the door and turns to look at Taichi again, his expression is grateful. 

They head for the elevator at the end of the walkway, moving slower than usual on account of the heels. 

“I can’t believe we’re going out like this,” Yamato says, as he pushes the button to call their ride.

“Our masculinities can take it,” Taichi says.

“Still, though.”

“I know.”

Once they are safely inside the elevator, and the bright lights above make it easier for them to see each other’s faces, Yamato asks, “Did you do that make up yourself?”

“No way,” Taichi says. “Hikari went to town on it. It was like her best day ever. How about you?”

“I watched a video online. It wasn’t that hard.”

Yamato’s pretty much bare-faced except for a dramatic smokey eye. It weirdly kind of suits him. He’s not wearing a wig either, but his blonde hair is tousled into something more punk than usual. Of course, he looks like he’s stepped off an actual catwalk, instead of heading to some stupid costume party.

“How come you look like Kate Moss and I look like I’ve stepped out of Rocky Horror?” Taichi says.

The elevator jolts to a halt and the doors open with a chime. Yamato steps out first, but pauses to look back, holding an arm across the doorway to make sure the doors don’t close before Taichi can step out too. 

“I bet everyone who meets us asks themselves the same question,” he says, grinning. 

Taichi laughs at that, and socks him in the shoulder as he passes. 

They walk to the subway, swearing at their shoes, catching one another when they stumble.

On the train, they stand close, even though the carriage isn’t packed. They hold tight to the hand straps overhead, their bodies swaying with the rhythm of the wheels as they talk intently about what Taichi should say if Michiko asks him out again. 

Taichi. Yamato. Michiko. Here’s how that goes.

Yamato is there first, but things burn out in a quick, intense, flash. It’s the classic Ishida romance. People desperately want to sleep with him, so they do, then quickly realise that he’s not what they’re expecting him to be — that he doesn’t really care that much about anyone besides the few important people he already has in his life. And then it all goes down in flames.

That’s exactly what happens with Michiko. Taichi knows that it’s over because he sees her yelling at Yamato in tears in the middle of the school courtyard one lunchtime while Yamato just stares at her and says “So, walk away then,” cold as ice, like Yamato can be if you’re not Taichi, or Sora, or Takeru.

Michiko does. And despite the tears, she obviously doesn’t care too much about him either, because she asks Taichi out barely a week later.

Normally, he’d like to give something like that more space, but Michiko is super hot, and it’s been way too long since he had a girlfriend — he’s starting to feel the ego sting of having to rely on nothing but his own hand all the time.

It’s not like he doesn’t run it past Yamato, but it’s clear there’s no conflicts of interest there.

“Go with my blessing and bone,” Yamato tells him. “She’s way too much. I can’t deal with that. You’ll probably fucking love each other.”

The weird thing is, he’s not wrong. Taichi and Michiko turn out to have a lot in common. They both love 90s rave music and gory horror movies. They’re both pushy and outgoing. 

Probably they’re too similar. Probably that’s why it never lasts, every time they try. And they have tried several times now.

“It’s pretty simple,” Yamato says, on the train. “Do you want to fuck her again?”

“Always.”

“Even in heels?”

“Sure.”

“Then do it.” 

Taichi readjusts his grip on the hand strap, setting his weight against the motion of the train. “It’s so straightforward for you, isn’t it?” 

“It doesn’t have to be some big thing,” Yamato says, widening his perfectly-lined eyes, “You can just have sex. That’s allowed. We’re eighteen. We don’t need to get married.” 

“Girls don’t think like that.” 

Yamato crosses one black boot over the other, to shift his centre of gravity as the train flies around a corner. “First, that’s sexist. They absolutely do.” 

“Sometimes,” Taichi says. 

“Sometimes.” 

“And second?” 

“Second, maybe you should start sleeping with boys then,” Yamato says with a smirk, “If you want to make it real simple.” 

“Great, that’s super helpful advice. Thanks.” 

“Hey, if you wanted serious help with your love life, you should have gone to Sora.” 

Taichi plants his feet more firmly as the train pulls into a station. He releases the hand strap long enough to tug at the hem of his dress, which is riding up in an annoying way. 

“Is she coming tonight?” he asks. 

Yamato shakes his head. “Said she’s got better things to do than try to make sure you and I don’t do any illegal substances in miniskirts.” 

At the sound of the doors closing, Taichi reaches back up and grabs the strap above his head, just in time to anchor himself before the train starts to move again. “Well, that’s insulting,” he says. “And what do the skirts have to do with it?” 

“Right? We’re equally likely to make poor decisions in our regular clothes.”

“Shit, will it just be you and me? Is anyone else invited?” Taichi says, meaning anyone else from their shared unofficial family. 

“Mimi. She’s coming.” 

“Sweet,” Taichi says, because Mimi is absolutely his favourite dance partner. “Only the fun ones. Nobody to bring the vibe down by being sensible.”

Yamato smiles at him, openly affectionate and cheerful in a way that most people think he can’t be. 

“The most fun,” he says. 

*

They get off in the middle of Shibuya and fight their way through the Saturday night madness, ducking down a familiar side street that they know will take them off the main road and into the web of tiny backstreets behind. 

They are both city kids. They know how to slip through Tokyo stress-free, weaving through the maze-like alleyways, pausing at junctions to gather their bearings and debate which way to turn. 

It’s not long before their combined internal compasses come up good. They find the bar, sleek and new, tucked between a yakitori joint and a rowdy izakaya, both already spilling over with drunk salarymen. 

There is an actual bouncer on the door, a thick-necked man all in black, who looks like a gangster, and an actual guest list that he checks their names against. 

“Are you sure we’re not stepping into some yakuza den here?” Yamato says, only half joking.

“If we are, then we’re pretty fucked, because we’re both dressed like girls,” Taichi replies, nodding a bow at the bouncer, because it never hurts to have manners when you’re walking unwittingly into a gang lair.

But then they are inside, and they’re quite clearly in the right place, because there are balloons, and people they know, and Michiko is right there to welcome them.

“Hey!” she says, turning. Big beautiful smile and kisses on both cheeks. “You came. You look amazing!”

“Of course,” Taichi says.

“And who’s your date?” she teases.

“Hi,” Yamato says, stooping so she can kiss him too. 

“Oh honey, you have legs for days,” she says and reaches to pull his jacket open so that she can see the whole outfit.

There’s something sort of sexy about watching her touch Yamato. Taichi finds himself fixating on the way her fingers brush his waist as she pushes the denim aside. It’s not jealousy. More awareness that seeing the two of them together would be like watching really awesome porn.

“Thanks,” Yamato says, and then gives Taichi a look that tells him he’s missed something he should have noticed right away. “Where’d you get your outfit?”

Michiko lets go of him and holds her hands out to the sides, posing to show it off. “You like it?”

For the first time, Taichi takes in what Michiko is wearing and realises two things. One: he probably doesn’t need to worry about her asking him out tonight, because she’s clearly already sleeping with somebody else. Two: he needs to have a talk with one of his boys about loaning kit to people who aren’t on the soccer team.

“Hey, what’s up?” Taichi says. “You’ve come to your own birthday party dressed as me?”

“I’m not you. These are somebody else’s shorts,” Michiko says, with a smug flick of the high ponytail that her long hair has been scraped into. 

Taichi reaches out and fingers the black armband she’s wearing around her bicep, beneath the sleeve of the school team’s soccer strip. 

“This. Means you’re team captain.”

“Does it? I thought that was just some accessory you wore to look cool?”

“No.”

There’s a pause. Yamato looks over to the bar, where the guys from his band are gathered. “I’m going to go say hi to Kentaro,” he says, already starting to edge his way out of the conversation.

“You can both go,” Michiko says, ushering them past. “Come on. Move it along. You’re causing a bottleneck. I’ll talk to you later.”

They head further into the bar, leaving her to greet the next guests.

“I’m sorry,” Yamato says, sounding honestly sympathetic. “It’s the worst when what you think is a guaranteed lay turns out not to be.”

Taichi shrugs, scanning the crowd of people who are already here, looking for familiar faces. He can see a bunch of his teammates on the dancefloor. “It’s cool. I’ll just have to go home with somebody else tonight.” 

“Oh, it’s like that. You’re on a mission now.”

“Locked and loaded,” Taichi says, with a grin.

“Well, Godspeed,” Yamato tells him, already walking backwards in the direction of the bar, where what looks Dolly Parton, that girl from Garbage, and his third band mate, Koji, who appears to have simply come as himself, are waiting for him. “Don’t let it be Mimi.”

“Of course not,” Taichi calls, and then turns on his high heel and strides over to where the other guys from his team are already shouting and laughing in a rowdy huddle.

*

Two hours later, Taichi has practically forgotten about Michiko and Takoda – centre-forward, the boy who Taichi has to lay into on Monday for improper use of official game strip. 

Not tonight. He’s not going to be that guy.

Anyway, there’s plenty to distract him. Taichi loves to dance. The dancefloor is his natural home. The music is banging. All of his boys are here. He’s had three beers. Nothing to complain about.

Mimi is wingwomaning hard for him, too. She’s friends with all the hottest girls in school and keeps bumping them playfully in his direction, which is unnecessary, but pretty cool all the same.

“Did you like Hana?” Mimi shouts, right in his ear, over the thrum of bass, one track leading into the next. And honestly, Taichi can’t remember which one Hana was.

“She’s nice,” he says, non-commital.

Mimi tuts at him. She’s come dressed, fittingly, as a ringleader – hair slicked back, tight pants, red tailcoat and a little handlebar moustache set above her pretty mouth. 

“You are so picky, do you know that? I’m running out of friends.”

Taichi laughs and then holds his hands out helplessly. “Which one was Hana? The brunette?”

“Blonde! I thought you’d like a blonde.”

“I don’t even remember there being a blonde,” Taichi says. “Did I meet her tonight?”

“Oh my God. You’re such a lost cause.”

Mimi touches her hair, tugs at the lapels of her red jacket. “Wow, I am sweating. I need to lose some layers. Wait here.” 

She starts to make her way off the dancefloor, pausing to say hello to at least six different people as she goes. 

Over at the bar, Yamato looks up. When their eyes meet, Taichi winks at him, and Yamato lifts his drink in salute. 

Usually, they stick to their own gangs at social events like this. Taichi likes to be right at the heart of the action, while Yamato’s busy doing his ‘too cool to even be here’ act on the periphery. And that’s fine. They give each other space.

Tonight, though… Through the beats and the lights and the smiles of the girls, Taichi finds himself constantly seeking Yamato out. Catching his eye. Checking in. 

He used to do that a lot – back when they were kids and they relied on each other to survive. But they’ve been safe for years now. There’s no need to keep looking. 

“Hey,” somebody says, right next to Taichi, and it takes a moment for him to work out that it’s his goalkeeper, Akira, who is dressed like Uma Thurman in _Pulp Fiction_. Black bob. Red lips. 

“Hey, man,” Taichi grins. “Great party, right?”

“The best,” Akira says, and leans in a little closer, like they’re sharing secrets, even though he’s having to practically shout over the music. “Listen, your friend? Is insanely attractive.”

“Oh, Mimi?”

Akira shakes his head and then nods across the room. “He’s your friend, right?”

Taichi follows his gaze, right back to the bar. 

“Yamato?” he says, raising his eyebrows in surprise. He likes to feel he has a pretty good grasp of who the members of his team are as people and it is the first time that this preference has made it onto his radar. 

“I know, right? I don’t look the type,” Akira says, wryly, like he gets that shit all the time. “Is he?

“Your type?” Taichi can’t help glancing over at Yamato again, who is now leaning across the bar to accept a couple of glasses from the bartender. Yamato is everybody’s type. But that’s not what Akira means. “If he is then he’s kept it a big secret from me. Sorry, dude.”

Akira doesn’t look deterred. “Maybe he just doesn’t know it yet. That happens all the time. Think he’ll come dance?”

Taichi watches as Yamato passes one of the glasses to that girl from Garbage — Kentaro, probably — and another to Dolly — definitely Tomohiro, who is on the soccer team too — and then reaches back for more. He’s lost the denim jacket now, and is down to just dress and boots.

A lot of people seem to think of him as some kind of stone cold fox, but that’s never really made sense to Taichi. He’s seen Yamato in tears. He’s seen him wearing the glasses that he doesn’t want anyone to know that he needs sometimes. He’s seen him laugh so hard that soda has come out of his nose. One time, he saw him almost pass out in the middle of his kitchen because he’d cut himself chopping vegetables and couldn’t handle looking at that much of his own blood. 

Taichi’s seen his friend so many different ways that the sex symbol view of him has always just seemed naive. 

But tonight, Yamato doesn’t look like himself. He just looks like some really hot stranger. And Taichi can’t blame Akira for checking him out.

“You won’t get him on this dancefloor until it’s the last three songs of the night,” he says, smiling at the thought. “But then he’ll throw a tantrum when they shut it all down and try to make him leave.” 

He looks back at Akira, still smiling, only to find the goalkeeper staring at him with a strange look on his face.

“What?”

“Nothing,” Akira says. “Thanks for the info, El Capitan.”

“Sure,” Taichi says, with a shrug.

When he glances towards the bar again, Yamato is gone. But then Mimi is suddenly back, grabbing onto his arm.

“Look who I brought. Since you don’t like any of my friends,” she says, gesturing behind her to where Yamato is squeezing between the last two people surrounding them on the dance floor.

It is the unfamiliar outfit, Taichi decides. That’s what makes all the difference. It’s not that the dress makes him looks like a girl. It doesn’t. That would be too simple. But in that make up, those boots, he looks like a person that you’d really, really want to sleep with. And Taichi kind of does. And it’s confusing. 

“Hi,” says Akira, who is still standing right there.

“Cool costume,” Yamato tells him, with a smile.

“Thanks,” Akira says, smiling back, and then Taichi finds himself stepping between them, making it seem like he’s only doing it so that they can hear each other over the music.

“I thought you weren’t going to dance,” he says to Yamato, probably too loudly.

“Mimi said you keep striking out. Thought you could use my expertise.”

“I’m not striking out! I just haven’t found someone I like.”

Before Yamato can come up with some smart remark to that, Mimi shrieks in delight and starts bouncing up and down because Cascada has started playing and oh my god, she loves this song, they all have to dance right now.

So they dance, in what becomes a shifting huddle of people. Soccer players and Mimi’s friends, and Kentaro and Tomohiro, all come and go, and go and come, as song follows song. Akira peels away. Then Mimi is out of sight, too. But Taichi and Yamato just keep dancing. 

At one point, in a lull between heavy beats, Yamato leans in and says, “Don’t have some kind of moral panic when I say this, but you look weirdly hot in that dress.”

Taichi laughs, staring at him, just as the next beat kicks in. “I was thinking the same thing about you.”

“What?”

“I was thinking the same,” Taichi shouts, over the pounding music. “You look totally bangable!”

“Would you like to?” 

“What? Bang you? Is that a serious offer?”

“I don’t know,” Yamato says, shrugging one shoulder. But he’s smiling. They’re joking. Or not joking. Definitely kind of flirting. If it was somebody else, one of Mimi’s friends, Taichi would already be reading the signs and stepping in closer, trying to put his hands all over her. It feels like it could be just that straightforward. 

_Then do it_ , he remembers Yamato saying on the train.

There’s another thrum from the speakers, the DJ drawing out the intro to the next track long enough that it takes a moment for Taichi to work out what it is.

“Yes, fuck!” he says, and when Yamato looks at him, adds: “This song! It’s so good. There’s a great drop. And a really filthy beat.”

“Listen to you talk like you know about music,” Yamato says.

“I know about this music. This is my music,” Taichi says, and as he says it, he does exactly what he’s been thinking of doing: he steps in close, puts his hands on Yamato. He can feel the warmth of his skin and the shape of his hips through the thin black fabric of the dress.

And Yamato doesn’t step back. He doesn’t push Taichi away. Instead, he just lifts his chin, looks him in the eyes, with a familiar kind of challenge. _And what?_ his expressions says. _Then do it._

Nobody notices as they start to move together. People are dancing all around. The music is so loud. The disco lights make everything feel chaotic. 

Yamato might not like to dance as much as Taichi, but that doesn’t mean he can’t do it. Beats flow through him like water. And even though this isn’t his type of music, he can still appreciate it. He thrills at the twists and surprises built in. Taichi can see it happening, the delighted eyebrow quirk as a pause breaks, a new beat kicks in, the song carrying them somewhere he did not expect.

As they dance, Taichi is hit with a weird feeling, a kind of deja vu, like this has happened before and is bound to happen again: the two of them, together in a crowd, close, and hot and euphoric.

One of Yamato’s hands is low on Taichi’s back, the other running over his shoulder, as he says “Do you want to go somewhere?”, somehow making his voice soft despite the noise all around, looking at Taichi through lowered lashes. And ok, so this is how he does it.

“Yes,” Taichi says. “Right after this song.”

*

They wind up outside, in one of the little alleyways they passed on their way to the bar. It’s narrow enough and dark enough that people walk on by. The noise from the surrounding pubs and restaurants and pachinko palours covers any sounds they might make.

It’s a risk, but the alternative is walking back to the station and sitting together under the harsh lights of the train, all the way home. That would give them both far too many chances to think twice about this.

Instead, they make out where they are, Taichi standing with his back to a wall as Yamato presses against him, his thigh pushing between Taichi’s legs and his teeth dragging against Taichi’s bottom lip. 

He obviously knows what he’s doing. It’s not like Taichi wouldn’t have expected that, because even though Yamato is uptight about literally everything else, he’s always been weirdly casual about sex. Taichi’s heard all the gossip about him that there is to hear. But that’s different to being here, feeling Yamato touch him, hearing the obscene noises that their mouths make as they move together.

“Is this ok?” Yamato pauses to ask, as he slides one hand up under the skirt of the dress that Taichi had forgotten he was wearing. His fingertips are rough, calloused from guitar strings, but the touch is surprisingly soft.

“More than ok,” Taichi says, and can’t help grinning, because even though he’s never done anything like this with a boy before, it doesn’t feel at all unnatural. “I’m dying to see if that reputation of yours is accurate.”

“What’s my reputation?”

“That you’re the best fuck in school.”

Yamato smiles at that. “Well, I’ll try my best to live up to the hype.” He turns to look down the alleyway, assessing how much they can get away with in a semi-public place. “Though we are kind of limited here.”

“You and I are great at making things work,” Taichi says, and then reaches out to turn Yamato’s face back towards him, because he can’t stand the fact that they aren’t kissing anymore.

Yamato hums in agreement, vibrations against Taichi’s lips. The hand that is still pushed up under his skirt slides into his underwear and Taichi feels Yamato’s fingers wrap around him, agonisingly gentle at first, and then firmer, the strokes building to just the right pressure. 

It’s totally different. Not like being with a girl. Yamato’s touch is so confident – the touch of someone who is used to having a dick in his hand. It doesn’t matter that Taichi’s legs are quivering, making it hard to stand up in his heels. He’s already so hard. He puts his arms around Yamato’s neck and lets him half-hold him up, because Yamato is tall, and strong, and can absolutely take it. 

It’s over embarrassingly quickly. Taichi comes sucking hard on Yamato’s lower lip. 

“Fuck,” he says, breathless, as Yamato wipes his hand on the inside of Taichi’s skirt, looking oh so pleased with himself. That look alone is enough to give Taichi the motivation to pull himself together, despite the fact that he just came so hard that he’s still seeing stars. 

Yamato looks like he is about to say something, but Taichi doesn’t want to hear what it is. He grabs him by the waist and pulls him in tighter, kissing him before he can even start to speak. They aren’t finished yet.

Blood still pounding from his own orgasm, Taichi manoeuvres them around, stepping Yamato up against the wall, reversing their positions.

He doesn’t know what makes him say it. He’d never say it to a girl. But it’s that look he saw on Yamato’s face. The way that Yamato always likes to push him.

“Put your hands above your head.” 

Yamato blinks at him. For a second, Taichi thinks he has hit the wrong note, that Yamato will refuse. But then he slowly lifts his arms and rests them back against the wall, crossing one wrist over the other. 

Watching him do it sends a buzz of energy running through Taichi’s whole body. “Ok, keep them there,” he says. 

He leans one hand against Yamato’s crossed wrists, to make sure. And with the other, he reaches down, sliding his fingers under the black skirt, touching him through his underwear, and then taking him in hand. He strokes him just like he would stroke himself.

Yamato turns his face and presses it into his arm. “Oh God,” he breathes, and this is it, this is perfect, because Taichi’s never seen him this vulnerable before and it’s like the one last piece of the puzzle that makes up the whole of him. And now Taichi has that too.

There’s noise from the mouth of the alleyway. The clatter of beer kegs being wheeled by on a trolley. Laughter from a passing group of people. They need to hurry up. But Yamato is close. Taichi can tell by the way his body is shaking.

“Are you going to come for me?” he says, putting his mouth to Yamato’s ear, nipping at his earlobe.

“Yes,” Yamato says, and then he does. 

His wrists strain against Taichi’s grip, but Taichi just presses them down more firmly, because he always finishes the things he starts. He only lets go when Yamato turns his face from his arm, still breathless, his cheeks flushed. That’s when Taichi releases his hold and steps back, giving him space to lower his hands and clean himself up.

The alley suddenly seems a lot less private. It’s damp and kind of cold. There are weird smells. Taichi can feel the tackiness of his come drying against his thighs.

After a moment, Yamato says, “That was different.” 

“Sorry, did I– ” Taichi starts, but Yamato shakes his head quickly, interrupting

“I liked it,” he says.

“Cool,” Taichi says, licking his lips, wondering if it is too soon to kiss Yamato again. “I liked it too.”

Yamato straightens his skirt. Runs both hands through his hair. “Should we go back in? Or leave?”

“Leave, I guess?”

“Yeah.”

They don’t kiss again. But they head down the alley, side by side, like everything is totally normal.

Back on the street, they pause, blinking at the assault of noise, and lights, and people.

“I think I’m hungry,” Yamato says.

“Ok,” Taichi says, and then catches Yamato’s elbow before he can start to walk further out into the street. When Yamato looks at him, Taichi says, “You have my lipstick on your face. Like a lot.”

“Oh, shit.” Yamato scrubs at his mouth, scowling, looking adorable.

Taichi laughs at him and puts an arm around his shoulders, feeling overwhelmed by a feeling of brightness, of power. 

And they head back into the city, in search of food.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Some notes…
> 
> 1.) I realised when I was planning the rest of this story out that my timeline was simply not going to add up, because of the way the Japanese academic year runs April to April. So I have gone back and shifted the events in time (which means the Halloween party is now a summer party, sorry not sorry). I’ve also added date markers to make things clearer.
> 
> 2.) I also only just realised last chapter that I’ve been setting everything I have written in this fandom in the wrong decade. So. That’s happened. But I’ve tried to actually stick to the right cultural refs this time around.
> 
> 3.) Sorry this took so long and then the result is a chapter that basically just attempts to knit together the utter chaos that is the plot of this story...

_October_

Yamato wakes, sleeps, and then wakes again, into a room that still feels soft and drowsy. He drifts there in the space between asleep and awake. Behind him, Taichi groans and rolls over, stretching his legs, the joints in his knees and ankles cracking. 

The bright glow of sunlight is already leaking in around the blinds that cover Yamato’s bedroom windows. It must be late already. He checks the clock: 10am.

There’s a hand on his shoulder and then Taichi saying “Hey, good morning,” only it isn’t Taichi after all, and Yamato stiffens, remembering. 

He turns to face Akira, who is smiling at him from the pillows, still touching Yamato’s shoulder, his fingers stroking up and down, like he’s petting a cat. Yamato doesn’t like it. He reaches up and moves the hand away from him.

“Hi,” he says, and then doesn’t know where to go from there. Normally people aren’t still here in the morning.

Akira pushes himself up on one elbow and looks down at him. His eyes are dark and long-lashed. Darker and lashier than Taichi’s. But that doesn’t make them better. 

“I’m starving,” he says, and stifles a yawn with his hand. “Do you want to get dressed and go out for breakfast?”

“What day is it?” Yamato says, more to himself, than to Akira, because he feels disorientated, like he still has one foot in whatever dream he was having before he woke up.

“Saturday. I know a really good place for pancakes by the bay.”

Yamato sits bolt upright. _Saturday._

“I don’t want breakfast,” he says, tossing the covers aside and dropping his legs over the edge of the bed. “You need to go.”

“Okay,” Akira says, easily. He stretches his long, tanned arms over his head. He’s definitely sexy. He’s got that going for him at least. 

Yamato stands up and starts picking up clothes. “Now.” 

“What’s the rush?”

“My dad’s on his way home,” Yamato lies, with another glance at the clock. “I don’t want to have to deal with explaining this to him right now.” He dumps the pile of Akira’s clothing onto the bed and looks at him expectantly.

Akira reaches for his shirt. “I get it,” he says. “I’m not going to make trouble for you.”

“Good,” Yamato says, and then heads for the shower. 

He keeps it short. Just enough to rinse away any traces of what he maybe, probably, almost definitely, shouldn’t have done last night. 

Right before he shuts off the water, he turns his face up and lets the spray run directly over his face, the hot needles giving him strength. 

Akira is dressed and pulling on his shoes in the porch by the time Yamato throws on clothes and comes out into the living room. Good. Yamato’s not in the mood to fight with someone.

“Is that it, then?” Akira asks, straightening up. “Or can we do this again?”

Yamato goes over and leans past him, to flip the latch on the door. “I don’t know yet,” he says.

Akira smiles slowly. His teeth are bright and there’s a teasing glimmer in his eyes that is both familiar and alien. Like but not like. The mood is the same, but it’s missing all the years of context. “Let me know when you do,” he says and then shifts slightly, angling his face for a kiss. 

Yamato doesn’t meet him halfway. He steps back instead, and nods towards the door. 

Once again, Akira doesn’t look pissed off by this, and Yamato really appreciates this guy’s willingness to just do what he’s told.

“Gotcha,” he says, opening the door. “I’ll see you around.”

He’s so cool about the whole thing – stepping out onto the walkway, lifting his chin in farewell, pulling the door shut behind him – that Yamato sort of regrets refusing to kiss him goodbye. But there’s no need to dig himself deeper into this hole he’s in; the surface is already way too far away.

In the kitchen, Yamato makes coffee and stands at the counter, thinking, holding his steaming mug in one hand. 

The year so far is not going well. Not only does Yamato still feel almost as clueless about his future as he did at the age of eleven, he now has the added complication of being involved in some kind of baffling “not a thing” with Taichi, who has been especially extra this year. Turning eighteen seems to have just given him way more shit to prove and even less to lose. It’s exhausting to witness. 

And now this. With Akira. Yamato closes his eyes, just at the thought. There is no scenario where him deciding to sleep with Akira is not a bad idea. 

But sometimes Yamato does that. He takes something that he knows is a bad idea, and then does it anyway. He looks at it, considers it from all angles, thinks to himself: _don’t do that_. And then he does it.

If he’s going to be kind to himself, he can blame Taichi this time. Because Taichi has spent the past few weeks apparently rekindling his moronic on-off thing with Michiko – the same thing that everyone in school got bored of about a year ago – and then has the balls to come direct to Yamato with the line “I mean, you said this wasn’t serious, so everything’s still cool, right?”

It is cool. It's cool, because it means that Yamato can easily take Akira up on the offer that’s just been sitting there waiting for him, and give the guy everything he’s been wanting, confident in the knowledge that it will eventually get back to Taichi because the whole of that stupid soccer team are the worst gossips in school. 

Boom. Dirty work done for him. Taichi can see how he likes that.

Though, none of that means that Yamato is okay with Taichi turning up at his apartment today, to work on their mentor assignment, and physically running into Akira there. These things need to happen with some degree of distance.

Ten minutes later, Yamato is washing dishes when the buzzer for the front door of the apartment building sounds. He strips off his rubber gloves and leans on the button to release the door lock, not bothering to use the intercom. He knows who it is.

Taichi’s at the door a moment later, slightly out of breath from sprinting up the stairs. He holds up a brown paper bag with the name ‘Mister Donut’ printed on it.

“Yo, I bought provisions,” he says, “Figured we’d need them as we address all our shit.” He steps into the apartment, closing the door behind him and toeing off his sneakers, seemingly all at once, not pausing for a second. “Do you have the assignment sheets? Because I definitely don’t. Think I left them at school. Where shall I put these?”

Yamato takes the bag that Taichi’s shaking at him, turns and heads back to the kitchen, to make another coffee. “There better be a chocolate one in here,” he says, over his shoulder.

“Of course. I’m not an idiot.” Taichi follows and then leans against the kitchen counter, watching as Yamato scoops the coffee grounds. He does this a lot. Gets suddenly focused on something that Yamato is doing and watches him with rapt attention, like he’s never seen anyone make coffee before.

“You want some?” Yamato holds up the coffee pot, even though he knows Taichi never drinks the stuff. 

Taichi shakes his head. Then he says, “Did you decide what you want to do for your birthday?” because that is the kind of attention-deficit conversational leap that Taichi makes all the time.

“I still don’t want to do anything,” Yamato says, as the coffee machine starts to gurgle and the best smell in the world fills the kitchen. His birthday was months ago, but he decided to let it pass without fanfare, something that Taichi finds completely unacceptable.

“Come on! You turned eighteen and never even had a party,” Taichi says, looking up from rummaging in the bag of doughnuts. 

“I don’t want a party. I’m sick of parties.”

“I’ll throw you a surprise one.”

Yamato points a finger at him. “If you do, I’ll kill you.”

“That’s extreme.”

“I’m dead serious.”

Taichi takes a big bite of the doughnut in his hand. “Is your dad around today?” he says, through the mouthful.

Yamato folds his arms and leans back against the kitchen counter. “He’s in Hokkaido for a week.”

“Business trip?”

“Schmoozing with clients at ski lodges, apparently.” Yamato shrugs one shoulder. “Though it could be sex tourism for all I know.”

Taichi snorts with laughter, spitting tiny doughnut crumbs. “Gross. Don’t.”

“Well, he’s not getting it anywhere else. He never brings women home.”

“That must suck.”

“He’s old. Things change.”

“Not that. That doesn’t change. I’ll always want sex. Even when I’m eighty.” 

Taichi grins, and Yamato finds himself smiling back. “This doesn’t feel like it should be a sober conversation.”

“No, we should definitely be getting drunk to discuss old-age sex.” 

Yamato turns to pour his coffee, then wraps both hands around the mug. It’s his favourite: terracotta, glazed dark blue. The warmth of the liquid inside seeps through to his palms. He glances over the rim of it to find that Taichi is already watching him with the kind of heated look he gets when he’s thinking about them fucking.

“You want a little vodka in that coffee?” he asks. “What do they call that? Irish coffee?”

“Irish coffee is whiskey.”

“Hey, whatever does the trick.”

“It’s eleven AM,” Yamato says. “Anyway, you know what will happen if we start drinking.” 

Taichi swallows his last mouthful and then licks a smear of doughnut glaze from his thumb. “Maybe that’s not such a bad thing.” 

“What about our assignment?” Yamato says. But he is already putting down his mug and pushing it along the counter, out of harm’s way, because although he’s still mad about the Michiko thing, he finds it impossible not to play into it when Taichi’s looking at him like that.

“I like this assignment better,” Taichi says, stepping in closer.

When they kiss, it’s easy. This part’s always easy. Being with Taichi physically is totally natural, like this is something they have done forever. It’s all the other stuff around this that fucks them up. 

They find their way out of the kitchen and into the living room, still kissing – they’ve had practice at that – only breaking apart once they make it to the sofa, to rearrange and then come together again. 

But as they hit the cushions, Taichi pauses.

“Hey,” Yamato says, nipping at his bottom lip, annoyed that they’re stopping.

Taichi has a frown on his face now. He pulls his hand out from where it has slipped between the cushions, and holds up something that isn’t supposed to be here still. It’s a watch. Pretty distinctive. Expensive-looking, with a leather strap and a big face with chronograph dials. 

“Whose is this?” Taichi says, staring at it. 

“Dad’s, I think,” Yamato says, without hesitation, ignoring the _Oh shit_ feeling. “He was looking for it the other day.”

Taichi moves away from him. “Huh,” he says, and now the mood of the entire room seems to have changed. “That is some A-class lying, man.” 

Yamato sits up. “I’m not lying.” 

“Yamato. I know this is Akira’s. I’ve seen him wearing it a million times.” Taichi holds the watch out, and Yamato is immediately angry at him for pretending not to know. He pushes Taichi’s hand, and the watch, away.

“Oh, so, you’re allowed to fuck about with Michiko, but I’m not allowed to do the same with him?”

“I didn’t say that.” 

Taichi tosses the watch onto the coffee table in front of them, where it lies glistening and incriminating. Neither of them looks at it. 

Yamato studies Taichi instead, trying to gauge what level of fight this will be. Taichi’s face is poker-straight, which is usually a pretty bad sign. But he hasn’t done anything wrong, he reminds himself, nothing that Taichi didn’t do first. The thought makes his nerves steely.

Taichi’s eyes are narrowed. He’s obviously making the exact same assessments, trying to read what Yamato’s thinking, while just about keeping his own feelings in check. 

“You like Akira?” he says, deciding on his play, “Fine. Hook up with him. But don’t do it just to make me jealous. Because that’s childish, and it’s not going to work.”

“Really?” Yamato counters. “Seems to be working pretty well to me.”

It’s the right move. Or the wrong move, really, depending on how you look at it. It’s right because it obviously hits a nerve; it’s wrong because it pisses Taichi off enough that it makes him lunge at Yamato with threat in his eyes. 

He catches him by the front of the shirt, which is pretty mild as first moves go, but Yamato’s not in a great position: he’s in the corner of the sofa, boxed in, with the coffee table in front and cushions all around – not great for purchase if he has to move quickly. 

He does manage to bend his leg and get a knee in between them, leverage he can use to shove Taichi away from him if things escalate. 

It’s not going to come to that, though. There’s something in Taichi’s eyes, some shred of insecurity, that tells Yamato he can finish this in one move. 

“Is this your foreplay?” Yamato says, tilting his head to one side, feigning confusion. “I can’t tell.”

That does it. Taichi releases him quickly, moving back. “I’m not doing this,” he says. 

“Oh really? That’s weird. Because you’re the one who started a fight just now.”

“You’re such a fucking headcase, Yamato,” Taichi says, standing up, heading for the door.

“Yeah, well, you’re not the great hero you think you are.” Yamato doesn’t get up, but he twists to look over the back of the couch, watching as Taichi stamps his feet into his shoes. “Babe,” he adds.

“Fuck you,” Taichi says. 

When he slams the door, the noise echoes through the apartment. 

Yamato takes a deep breath in and then lets it out slowly. He sits for a moment, staring at the watch on the coffee table, spotlit by a shaft of sunlight that is filtering through the window blinds. 

His coffee is still sitting on the counter in the kitchen. Very slowly, Yamato stands up and goes to get it.

It was always going to end like this. Yamato could have predicted it exactly, from almost the moment when it first began.

*

_July_

They don’t plan to do it again. Not after the first time. But somehow it just keeps happening. All summer long.

Yamato isn’t freaked out by doing something like that with another guy. After all, sex is sex. These things are fluid. Orientation is a spectrum. Ecetera. 

The fact that it is Taichi he’s doing it with... probably would freak him out, if he thought about it. But he solves that problem by just outright not thinking about it. 

The first time is so simple. After they’re done, they walk out of that alleyway, smarten each other up, and then go eat some chicken together, before getting back on the train to go their separate ways. 

Back in his empty apartment, as Yamato is finally peeling off his ridiculously uncomfortable black boots, Taichi texts him:

_Fun night :)_

Yamato stares at the message, undecided, not sure what kind of response it requires. But then almost immediately, a second message arrives: 

_Whatever you do don’t turn on channel 5 right now. They’re showing the grudge. Too scary for you_

Yamato messages back: _Thanks for the tip, seeing you in that makeup was all the scary I can handle tonight_

And just like that, things are fine.

At first.

They see each other twice. Once because they both have nothing to do on Monday morning and so go hang out together by the bay. They eat ice cream and gossip about Michiko and whoever-the-fuck on the soccer team she’s seeing now, and trade conspiracy theories about the fact that Koushiro probably-definitely has some kind of secret online girlfriend, because he was so weird about it the last time that Mimi was grilling him about whether or not he has a crush on someone. 

So far, so normal. 

The second time is at a barbecue that Takeru and Hikari organise. The two of them have appointed themselves _les secretaires sociales_ of the group and are always coming up with slightly lame but ultimately quite sweet ideas to get all of the chosen together on the regular.

Yamato and Taichi laugh and team up to tease their siblings, and argue over whether the barbecue coals are the right shade of grey to put the meat on yet (Taichi is wrong, realises it halfway through, but keeps up the pretence just long enough to undermine Yamato’s eventual victory). 

Other than Mimi, who keeps giving Yamato these smirking little sideways looks, nobody even seems to notice that anything is different. Which is fair enough. Because it’s not different.

But then there is another party. A small one. Just some of the people in their grade, at some kid’s apartment. And this time, not even Mimi is around to keep things in check with her knowing looks.

There’s beer and weed and Yamato drinks some kind of bottled gin cocktail which tastes disgusting, but does the trick, because he’s suddenly drunker than he would ever normally be. He has his dad’s alcohol genes, which means that he’s usually able to hold himself together. But there hadn’t been food in his house and he skipped dinner. Always a mistake.

It’s not just him cutting loose, though. Everyone is kind of a mess, all swept up in this being the last summer before they graduate. Things are getting pretty wild. People are acting like a meteor is heading their way and they’re counting down to the end of the world.

The apartment is too hot and too crowded, even with all the windows thrown open and people spilling out onto the balcony. In the tiny kitchen, Yamato runs into Taichi, both of them trying to find a clean glass for a drink of water. Their eyes meet, they both smile, and this look passes between them that says _l'm game if you are_.

The next thing Yamato knows, they are making out in the hallway. Taichi’s hands are in his hair and under his shirt and their teeth keep bumping together because they just can’t seem to get close enough, even pressed up against each other like that. 

Someone comes out of the bathroom, just feet away from them, and Taichi takes Yamato by the hand and pulls him inside so they can carry on in private.

They go down on each other right there in the bathroom. At least Yamato thinks they do. But maybe that doesn’t happen until they get to his place. He can’t really remember. 

Honestly, everything is pretty hazy until they are in his bedroom, and his mouth tastes like he threw up some time between then and now, and Taichi is freaking out in front of him.

“I don’t know what we’re doing here,” Taichi says, pacing. 

His hair is a mess and he’s not wearing a shirt and his jeans are unfastened, and his lips are pink and swollen. He looks really good. It’s distracting.

Yamato drags his hand over his face. “Do you mean physically how we got here? Because that’s kind of a blank for me too.”

“I mean, is this a thing now?” Taichi motions back and forth between them, waving his hand in the air, the gesture way too big in the small room. “Because that could be really fucking confusing and complex in terms of our, like, dynamic. You know?”

“What are you talking about?” 

Yamato thinks he remembers being on the train. He definitely remembers pushing Taichi against the side of the elevator in his apartment building so that he could kiss him right there in front of probably security cameras and any of his neighbours that might happen to get on at the next floor. 

The side of his hand is stinging. Yamato looks down and sees a big scrape running from his little finger to his wrist, the skin pink and angry.

“I’m asking if this is something right now,” Taichi is saying, “Because I feel like it has the potential to be some whole, huge, life-altering thing, and to tell you the truth I’m really not sure how I feel about that.” 

“Tai. Chill the fuck out, will you?” Yamato says, because his head is pounding, and Taichi is being really loud and honestly he can’t with this. 

“Can you just tell me if we’re a thing?”

“Of course we’re not. We literally just hooked up twice. It’s nothing.” Yamato holds up his hand. “How did I do this?”

“You wanted to climb some wall on the way here,” Taichi tells him, and then continues with the melodrama: “So, this is still cool? We’re not in the process of fucking everything up forever?”

“Hey. If you’re cool, I’m cool.” Yamato makes a show of looking Taichi up and down. “But you definitely do not seem cool.”

Taichi lifts his chin. “I’m cool.”

“Fine. Now can you stop? I feel like shit.” Yamato swallows and closes his eyes, as a fresh wave of nausea sweeps through him. “I think there might have been more than gin in that whatever-the-hell I drank.”

Taichi moves too quickly. The mattress dips and he is suddenly right there, touching Yamato with gentle hands. He is drunk too. Yamato can smell the alcohol on his breath.

“Are you ok?” he says, all focused and concerned, like he wasn’t just shouting the place down two seconds ago. 

Yamato opens his eyes. “We just said this wasn’t a thing.”

“Doesn’t mean I’m not going to worry about you,” Taichi says. He reaches out and tucks a strand of hair behind Yamato’s ear, which is just one step too far on the intimacy scale, particularly given the scene he was just making.

Yamato pushes him back with his forearm. “You don’t need to worry. You just need to back up and give me some air,” he says. He feels shaky, and like he might need to puke again. “I don’t need you to do your hero thing right now.”

“You want me to get you some water?”

Yamato nods, and Taichi springs up and hurries off to get it, because he doesn’t know how not to be a hero. 

The room is warm, but Yamato shivers anyway. Taichi’s behaviour just now has put him on edge. It’s not totally out of character for drunk Taichi to swing kind of wildly from one emotion to the next over what seems like some minor thing (though usually it turns out to be a much bigger thing, once you scratch beneath the surface a little), but Yamato’s not sure how they went from what he is fairly sure was pretty great sex, to an existential panic over whether they’re suddenly in some official relationship. 

The thought of _that_ is totally overwhelming. Not something that Yamato wants to even consider right now. An actual relationship between him and Yagami Taichi would be a guaranteed clusterfuck. Their friendship is deep, but still kind of volatile, even after all these years. Throw monogamy and all the expectations and trust issues that come with it into the mix and their delicate existence together would most likely implode.

Taichi’s right: this could be really fucking confusing and complex in terms of their, like, dynamic. 

Yamato hates it when Taichi is right.

His throat feels dry and his mouth tastes sour, so it’s a relief when Taichi comes back with the water. He hands over the glass and then stands there watching Yamato drink it, shifting his weight from foot to foot, restless again.

“Do you want me to go?” he asks.

“I don’t care.” 

Yamato suddenly can’t keep his eyes open. He lies down and pulls the sheet over his body, turning his back to the room.

He’s vaguely aware of Taichi hesitating and then climbing into the bed behind him, but before he can even decide if he feels relieved or annoyed at Taichi’s decision to stay, he has already fallen asleep.

*

“I think we need a plan,” Taichi says, the next morning, setting a plate of toast down on the kitchen table.

Yamato lifts his head from his folded arms and stares at it. “That’s burnt.”

“I know,” Taichi says. “I’m sorry.”

Yamato groans and drops his head back down again, speaking into the hollow made by the crooks of his elbows. “I can’t have gin. Don’t let me have it again.”

Taichi pulls up a chair, sits down in front of him and picks up a piece of blackened toast. “Do you think you got spiked?”

Yamato tries to shake his head, while moving as little as possible. “No. I think I just turned into you for a night.”

“Hey,” Taichi says, and then bites into his toast with a loud crunch. “Not bad,” he decides.

His bare foot nudges against Yamato’s, under the table. “You should eat something. You’ll feel better,” he says. A clear instruction. 

With a sigh, Yamato lifts his head again and reaches for what looks like the least-incinerated slice of toast.

“What do you mean ‘a plan’?” he asks.

Taichi has already finished his first slice and is licking black crumbs from his fingers. “A plan for what happens next time. If we do this again.”

Yamato picks at a singed corner of toast, scraping away the worst bits and grimacing, partly because the crumbs are getting under his fingernails, and partly because it is so utterly predictable that Taichi is already trying to take charge and find a way to control this uncontrollable situation.

But rather than start a fight that he will be too tired to finish, Yamato says: “So, what’s our plan?”

“I don’t know. I just thought it might help to know where we both stand.” 

“Ok,” Yamato says, and then waits, because they both know that he’s certainly not going to be first to open up.

“I mean, it’s the best sex I’ve had,” Taichi tells him. “Let’s start with that. You’re pretty great at it.”

Yamato scowls at his toast, because compliments about his sexual prowess are not what he needs when he’s covered in scrapes from whatever that thing with the wall was, and still feels like he could vomit at literally any moment. 

“Nobody’s great at sex. It’s only as good as the connection you have with the person you’re with,” he says.

Taichi raises his eyebrows at him. _And?_ the look says. 

“And. Yes, ok. It’s pretty great for me too,” Yamato snaps. “You want to make me say that when I’m too hungover to fight you on it? Fine. I’ll say it.”

“I think you’re borderline fighting me on it right now.”

“I’ll borderline fight you every step of the way, my friend.”

Taichi holds up his hands. “See? This is exactly what I’m talking about. This is why we need to set out some guidelines.”

Yamato tuts at him, because he can’t help himself. He feels like he’s in school. “Guidelines. Tai. Don’t be such a square. It’s sex.”

The toast plate rattles as both of Taichi’s palms come down hard against the table. Yamato looks up at him in alarm. 

“You arguing with me is turning me on right now. Ok? I’m telling you I need boundaries to this,” Taichi says.

“Oh.”

“Yeah.” Taichi gestures across the table, encompassing whatever the fuck is going on between them. “Like, this is going to become a problem for me.”

Taichi’s eyes are wide, sincere. He is dressed in the clothes he was wearing at the party the night before, but he’s showered at least. His hair is still damp at the edges; there are locks curling around his face that are darker and heavier than the rest. Yamato feels his defences give a little, just looking at him.

Taichi has never had any problems being open with his feelings; he has a way of making vulnerability look like strength. Which it is, really. Putting yourself on the line emotionally is not something that is easy to do. It is something that Yamato avoids it at all costs.

“Alright,” Yamato says, dropping the attitude. Satisfied that he has salvaged the toast as best he can, he takes a bite. “What boundaries do you need?”

“Well, I guess I’m kind of imagining there might be a next time. Let’s start there,” Taichi says. He places one hand on his chest. “I’d like there to be a next time. Would you?”

Yamato shrugs, which is maybe not the kindest way to say that he’s not against them hooking up again, but if anyone’s ego can take the hit, it’s Taichi’s.

Sure enough, Taichi just responds with one of his megawatt grins. “Cool,” he says, because after all these years, he’s gotten to be pretty hot shit at interpreting the various shades of apathy that Yamato shows to the world. He can read the meaning of that shrug better than just about anyone else could. 

Then, back to business, he says, “What you said last night about it not being a thing. Do you still want that?”

“Probably.”

“Good. Me too.”

“So, we say... what? We do this, but with no strings?” Yamato asks.

“Works for me.”

“Fine.” Yamato tosses the second half of his toast back onto the plate. “Can I lie back down now?”

Taichi immediately reaches for the discarded toast. “Knock yourself out.”

Yamato lowers his head back onto the cradle of one of his arms and closes his eyes. There’s silence, broken only by the sound of Taichi crunching on the overcooked toast. The room seems brighter than usual. Yamato wonders vaguely whether trying to drink a cup of coffee would make him feel better or worse right now.

Taichi finishes his toast and then goes quiet, which means he’s thinking hard.

After a minute or two, he says, “Do you think you’re gay?”

“I don’t care,” Yamato tells the table. “Are you?”

“Nah. I’m pretty sure I want to be normal later.”

Yamato cracks open one eye. “It’s not… I mean, it’s not not normal,” he says.

“No, I know that. I just meant. You know what I mean. Quote unquote normal. I want to have a wife and kids and stuff.”

“Oh. Well, me too, I guess.”

Taichi looks at him thoughtfully for a moment, then claps his hands together, and pushes back his chair with a scream of metal legs against floor boards. Both noises are way too loud. Yamato winces.

“I should go home and change. This shirt smells of beer,” Taichis says, getting up. “Will you be ok? You going to survive this if I leave?”

“I think literally the best thing that could happen to me right now would be not having to hear you talk anymore.”

Taichi chuckles. Yamato can hear him moving around the table, heading for the door, he assumes, but then Taichi is right there in front of him, crouching down, so he can look Yamato in the eye. He’s close enough for Yamato to be able to breathe in the scent of him – not stale beer, despite what he says. It’s something much more pleasant. 

“I’m glad we’re doing this,” Taichi says, and before Yamato can trot out some half-hearted agreement, he takes hold of the hand that is limp at Yamato’s side and brings it to his lips, kissing the backs of Yamato’s knuckles.

The gesture is totally unexpected. It makes Yamato open both eyes and look at him in confusion, wondering if he somehow misunderstood everything about the conversation they just had, particularly the parts about ‘no strings’ and ‘not gay’.

“Take some aspirin. You look like you need it,” Taichi adds, dropping Yamato’s hand. 

He stands up quickly, in a spring of athletic muscle, and then practically jogs to the door, because Taichi has to do everything on fast forward.

There’s a brief pause, long enough for feet to be thrust into sneakers, then the sound of the door opening and slamming. 

Yamato lifts his hand and stares at his knuckles, like there might be some clue there to unravel the growing knot of confusion forming inside of him. 

He has a bad feeling, and it has nothing to do with whatever he drank last night. It’s a creeping, ominous feeling, like there is something really important that he has forgotten to do, something that will lie in wait until it finds the perfect time to come back and bite him in the ass.

*

As far Yamato is concerned, the rules are crystal clear. They really didn’t leave much room for misinterpretation. 

The problem is that Taichi doesn’t know how to play by rules. He always acts like they don’t apply to him – even when he is the one who insists that there be rules in the first place.

On the surface, it’s all casual. Just like they agreed. But when they are alone together, Taichi does things, says things, that don’t chime with that. 

Maybe it’s just the way he is with anyone he sleeps with, part and parcel of his white knight schtick. But that doesn’t make it easy for Yamato to know how to respond when Taichi slows everything right down, when he holds him close and calls him ‘baby’.

That kiss, on the back of his hand, is a sign of things to come. The warning is there, right from the start. And Yamato does what he always does: he sees it, registers it, and then completely ignores it, in favour of walking right into self-destruction.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm sorry this story is taking forever and is kind of chaotic. But lockdown is HARD, yo. Bring on the end of this shit already...

_October_

Taichi skips the elevator and takes the stairs, flight after flight, his feet moving fast, like running soccer drills. He’s breathing hard by the time he reaches the ground. The muscles in his legs are burning.

Out on the street, he blinks up at the shifting clouds and then turns to stare back at Yamato’s apartment building.

How the hell has today taken the turn it just has? Barely ten minutes ago, he was arriving here with doughnuts. And now he’s – what? Possibly more angry than he has been in his entire life? Is that too dramatic?

He pictures Akira sitting on the couch, touching Yamato, pausing long enough to take off that stupid, too big, too expensive watch, before they get down to– 

It is not too dramatic. Taichi is fucking pissed. 

He bounces on the balls of his feet, testing whether he has it in him to run straight back up all those stairs again. Ok, he is fully aware that he was the one who just bailed out of that fight right now, but he hates to leave business unfinished, and this is business with a capital ‘b’. 

But then all business with Yamato is business with a capital ‘b’ these days. Fuck him for being able to get under Taichi’s skin the way he does.

A middle-aged woman walking a black pomeranian, pauses to stare at him long enough for Taichi to realise that he is still standing right in the middle of the sidewalk, quivering with pent-up energy. The dog seems friendly. It sniffs at his sneaker. But the woman jerks it firmly away.

Taichi dips a quick bow of apology and steps aside to let the pair pass, trying to look a bit less like an escaped mental patient as he does so. That’s what this entire situation is turning him into; it’s only a matter of time before day release is the best he can hope for.

With one last glance up at the building, Taichi makes the decision: nothing good will come out of going to bang down Yamato’s door and pick up where they left off right now. He doesn’t want to be responsible for the consequences of that.

Instead, he turns and takes off in the direction of the train station. He doesn’t want to go home and thinks maybe getting lost in the city will help to shake the horrible feeling that has begun to gnaw away inside of him. He sprints all the way, because running helps to clear his head. The tearing of air in and out of his lungs feels cleansing. 

Fast, fast, fast, up the stairs, onto the platform and then straight onto the first train, which is just pulling into the station. 

Under the fluorescent lights of the train carriage, Taichi catches his breath, holding onto the metal pole just inside the door, bending his knees and heel-toeing his feet, to stop the muscles from seizing up. 

Through the glass in the train doors, he watches the skyscrapers and powerlines fly past. The pounding rhythm of the train’s wheels is like a comforting disco beat.

“Taichi?” a voice says. 

He turns and sees – yes, that’s Michiko, sitting on one of the moulded plastic seats, wearing some cute outfit that involves knee socks and a denim jacket (that somehow makes him think of Yamato, because just about everything does these days), and looking right at him.

“Hey,” he says, shifting from pole to pole until he reaches her, moving easily despite the rocking of the carriage. He’s grown up on these trains. “What are you doing out here?"

“I had a hair appointment,” she says, giving her locks a little shake. “Not that I bet you can tell the difference.”

Taichi stares at her hair. It looks exactly the same as it always does.

“No, I totally can. It looks great,” he says.

Michiko preens, running her fingers through her hair with pride. (Yamato, again.)

“She’s the best. That’s why it’s worth travelling for. Where are you going?”

“Oh,” Taichi says, staring out the window as the train pulls into a station. “I don’t know. Into town?”

“Where’s your bombshell?”

“What?”

Michiko rolls her eyes, to let him know that she thinks he is being particularly idiotic. “Yamato. Duh. You told me you were hanging with him today. That’s why you weren’t free.”

“Right.” Bombshell, Taichi thinks. In the destructive sense, that’s probably accurate. “We’re fighting,” he says, because what the hell.

Michiko clucks her tongue in dismissal, like this minor problem of his is not even worthy of her time, but she will now take it upon herself to fix it for him anyway. 

“Why?” she demands, and then before Taichi can even think about how he might begin to explain, she barrels on: “Was it because we went to see DJ Swallow the other week? And he took it the wrong way?”

“Kind of,” Taichi says, because she’s right, in a roundabout way. He and Michiko had booked the tickets for that gig about a year ago, before they last split up. When the time came, there seemed to be no reason to not still go ahead together. It’s not like they aren’t still friends.

It was an awesome gig, too – dark and sweaty and pulsing with beats.

“Who else was I going to get to come see some washed up nineties DJ with me?” Michiko says. “And I wasn’t going to miss those tracks live, man.”

“No, totally. Me neither.”

The train jerks as it pulls into another station and Michiko purses her lips thoughtfully. “It doesn’t mean anything. You can tell him that, you know. I'm, like, definitively with Takoda now.”

She doesn’t mean them going to the gig; she means them kissing afterwards, outside the venue, too excited from dancing together all night to not follow up on it.

Honestly, Taichi was probably trying to prove a point. It’s painfully obvious to him that he is way more invested than Yamato is in whatever they have going on and he really doesn't know how to deal with that. It turns out that no strings isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. But Taichi’s not prepared to be the first to admit that he’s finding it difficult.

Taichi shakes his head. “I think it’s too late for that,” he says.

“He’s that mad at you?”

“I practically caught him with another guy today.”

Michiko’s eyes go wide. “Oh, em, gee,” she says, and scoots two inches nearer, even though they are already sitting close. “Who? What? Where? How? Tell. Me. Everything.”

“It doesn’t matter,” Taichi says, because he can feel his anger starting to rise up again immediately, just at the thought of it.

Michiko stares at him for a moment, then lifts one finger and pokes him in the shoulder with it triumphantly. “It’s that goalkeeper. Isn’t it?”

“No,” Taichi says.

“It is. Akira.” Her excited smile fades. “Oh, honey. That’s trouble. He’s hot. Did you know he has his eyebrow pierced?” She touches one of her own flawless brows.

“I’m going to kick him off the team.” 

Michiko clicks her tongue again. “Whatever helps.”

“Or kick the shit out of him. I haven’t decided yet.”

“Or, third option,” Michiko says, “You could, you know, talk to Yamato about it.”

“And say what?”

“Hello? That’s he’s not allowed to sleep with anyone else.”

Taichi stares at her in disbelief, because he can’t think of anything he could say that would be more likely to put a swift and decisive end to all that great sex they've been having. 

“I can’t tell him that.”

“Um, you absolutely can. It’s called asking someone to be your boyfriend.”

When she says it, she makes it sound like such a reasonable suggestion. But Michiko has forgotten who they are talking about, even though she of all people should know better. 

Yamato’s biggest turn off is realising that someone might seriously want to be with him. Michiko is not the only person that Taichi has seen standing in the school courtyard in tears while he looks on, icy cold – and she won’t be the last. Taichi’s watched it happen to too many people. Like hell is he going to be the next in line.

“You don’t understand,” he says. 

Michiko sighs. “You want to control him. But you can’t. And you can’t handle that. Because you have serious control issues.”

“No, I–-” Taichi begins.

“Yes, you do,” she interrupts. “You need help with those.”

“I do not have control issues. He’s a horrible commitment phobe.”

Michiko glances up as the train sweeps into the next station, and blinks, reading the name on the sign. “Look, this is my stop,” she says, standing up. “So, good luck with your troubles.”

Irrationally, Taichi wants to ask her to stay, even though he has spent the past ten minutes disagreeing with her. It feels like this whole train journey has been some super short intensive therapy session.

“Thanks,” he says, bouncing one of his knees, releasing a little more of the energy that seems to have nowhere to go.

“Hey, if someone was easy for you to own, then you wouldn’t want to sleep with them,” Michiko says, just before she gets off the train. “You need the challenge too much.”

Taichi watches her step down onto the platform and then turn to look back at him. “Talk to him!” she calls through the doors, just as they are closing.

*

Taichi stays on the train for a long time, until he is right in the heart of the city. There, he gets off and melts into the noisy, shifting crowds of people and walks and walks until his feet ache.

Usually, he wouldn’t put much stock in Michiko’s brand of pop psychology, which he knows she gets from girls’ magazines and TV shows. But something about what she said has struck close to the bone.

 _Is this your foreplay?_ Taichi hears Yamato saying, in his head. _I can’t tell._

Michiko couldn’t know what goes on in Taichi’s brain when he and Yamato are together, but she has still managed to be bang on the money.

The thing is, he goes into every encounter thinking, ‘this time, I’ll be normal’. But when Yamato is in front of him, giving him that look that is just daring him to push, some fuse crosses over and all Taichi wants to do is hold him down, feel him give, make him bend. It’s not violent. It’s not like that. It’s more about winning. Some pathetic throwback to when they were kids.

It’s fucked up, honestly. And it freaks Taichi out, because it doesn’t chime with who he thought he was now, who he wants to be – or with who he thought Yamato was, either. 

Maybe that’s part of it, though. Outside of the bedroom, Yamato is still so infuriating. Sometimes he acts like his whole purpose in life is to prove Taichi wrong. 

But when they are alone together, everything changes. If Taichi forces him to his knees and says ‘don’t move’, then Yamato won’t move. He’s like a different person. And Taichi doesn’t know if that’s what Yamato likes, or if that’s simply what Yamato _does_. He has started to wonder if maybe his friend’s reputation for being such hot shit in bed comes from the fact that he is actually just really good at knowing how to give people exactly what they want.

And this is what Taichi wants. He wants Yamato to let him be in charge. And Yamato gives it to him. 

So there’s that. Which, okay, maybe Michiko was right about there being some issues with control after all. But that’s only half of it. There’s also a whole other layer to it all, and that is the part which makes the whole situation so truly fucked up.

*

_August_

The summer isn’t even over when Taichi first realises that the rules of their arrangement are probably not going to cut it.

Specifically, he is in his room, fucking Yamato from behind, up against his bedroom door.

He leans forwards, panting with the effort of keeping their momentum going, and rests his cheek against the clammy skin of Yamato’s shoulder, breathes in the scent of his neck, digs his fingers a little harder into his hips – and realises that he doesn’t want to give this up for anything.

Here’s how they get to that:

It’s late August, and the days have mellowed. The heat is less intense, though the daylight still seems to go on forever. It’s barely twilight when the storm rolls in. 

Taichi and Yamato are only halfway home as the rain starts, exploding out of the sky in a merciless downpour that soaks them to the skin in minutes. There’s no point trying to seek shelter – it’s too late for that. So they just put their heads down and sprint the rest of the way back to Taichi’s apartment, the soles of their shoes slapping against the wet concrete.

Yamato’s a fast runner. He has no trouble keeping pace, is right there at Taichi’s side, the whole way home. They don’t stop until they reach the apartment building and can duck beneath the covered area at the foot of the stairs, laughing breathlessly and shaking the rain from their hair.

The sky is still luminous violet with the last shreds of daylight, but the security lights outside the building are already on. The combination of that threatening sky and the too-white bulbs above makes everything strange, like someone has turned up a contrast dial, making the blacks blacker and the brights brighter. 

Yamato’s skin is pale, chilled by the sudden temperature drop of the rain through the hot air, but his hair and clothes are dark – wet and plastered to his body. As he grasps the rail at the foot of the stairs and turns to look back at Taichi, he seems completely alive.

And even though neither of them has enough spare air in their lungs, Taichi finds himself stepping forwards to kiss him. He needs to feel the shape of him through the soaked cotton, taste the rain on his lips, tangle his fingers into wet hair. 

He keeps up the pressure of the kiss until he feels dizzy from lack of oxygen. Even then, as he starts to pull away, Yamato isn’t ready to let him go; the grip he has on Taichi’s waist keeps them locked together until Taichi is gasping and really fucking turned on and has to push Yamato back hard against the railings, holding him away from him long enough to say, “We need to go upstairs before I come in my shorts.”

Yamato smiles at him, pleased, and easy, and already in that bedroom space that makes Taichi want to grab him by the shoulders and just shake him, because how can he possibly get it so right all the time, like he has some secret way of knowing exactly what Taichi needs to see and to hear and to feel?

And now here they are, actually fucking. All the way. The first time they’ve managed to get it right, after a couple of mostly failed attempts. And it feels really good: tight and hot and perfect, like this is exactly how sex is supposed to be. 

They learnt lessons from the first couple of times. Way more prep: check. Triple the lube you think you need: check. Taichi definitely not on the bottom (at least not until he can learn to let go of some of his issues, God): check.

The new position was Yamato’s idea. There’s something about the slight height difference between them that lines things up just right. With his palms braced against the door, Yamato can push his ass back into the thrusts, helping to set the pace. It’s teamwork. It’s working. And Taichi is about to come super hard.

He bites down on Yamato’s shoulder to stifle the noise he makes, as the wave of pleasure rolls through him. (His family are away for the weekend, but he’s too used to always trying to keep it down to change now.)

Even as he’s shaking with sensation, he manages to keep his hand moving, up and down on Yamato’s dick, rhythm stuttering, but still going, until he feels Yamato come too. Only then does he sag forwards, the door creaking in its frame under their combined weight.

Taichi feels warm and hazy and doesn’t slide free right away, happy to lean there against Yamato, pressing his lips against the faint teeth marks he has just left behind.

Yamato inclines his head slightly, as close as he can come to looking at Taichi, in the position he’s in. “There’s spunk on your door,” he says.

“Don’t worry,” Taichi says. “I like my door like that.”

“You’re disgusting.”

Carefully, Taichi withdraws and steps back. He picks up his wet t-shirt from the floor and hands it to Yamato, pulling the condom off with his other hand.

Yamato stares at the t-shirt, then at the door. He doesn’t look happy about the suggestion. 

Taichi tosses the tied condom into the trash and then takes the t-shirt and wipes down the door himself, ignoring the look that Yamato is giving him, because it’s his room and his shirt, and he can do what he likes. 

“You want to watch TV?” he asks, when the last trace of what just happened has been scrubbed away.

After the rainstorm, they both need entirely new outfits. Taichi puts on the first things he finds and lets Yamato search through his drawers for something of Taichi’s to borrow that he finds the least offensive – it turns out to be a plain white t-shirt and pair of forest green shorts.

“You look good in my stuff,” Taichi tells him, as they are hanging their sodden clothes out to drip dry in the bathroom.

“I know,” Yamato says. “But don’t get used to it.”

And then, in what is probably the weirdest thing about this whole new situation, they go right back to just being normal friends, same as always. They park up on the sofa with a bunch of snacks raided from the kitchen and immediately set about arguing over what they should watch.

There’s this horror movie showing that Taichi has been dying to see, but it’s about some case of demonic possession or something and Yamato flat out refuses to watch stuff like that. 

“No ghosts. No demons,” he says, leaving no room for argument.

“Come on,” Taichi tries anyway. “It’s cool. I’m here. I’ll protect you.”

“You couldn’t protect me from a ghost,” Yamato says, straight-faced. “And I couldn’t protect you. That’s the whole point. Nobody can protect anyone from that shit.”

“That shit also doesn’t exist.”

“We’ve both seen too much unreal shit in our lives to be arguing about what does and does not exist,” Yamato says.

Taichi doesn’t have a good response to that, so he clicks his tongue in defeat and starts scrolling through the on-screen TV guide. “This thing about Tsutomu Miyazaki?” he suggests. 

Yamato nods. “That’s fine.”

“Murder’s fine. But not ghosts. Even though you know murderers are definitely actually real.”

“Yeah, but I kind of feel like I could take a murderer.”

It’s such Yamato-style logic that Taichi finds himself laughing. 

“Don’t you think?” Yamato prompts, raising his eyebrows. 

“I definitely think you’d make a murderer regret trying to murder you, yeah.”

As Yamato smiles at him from the other end of the couch, relaxed, and fucked out, and wearing his clothes, Taichi has the thought that this is exactly what he’s always imagined a real relationship would be like. 

Barely a month ago, when they had first started all this, the thought of having an actual relationship with another guy had seemed impossible. Taichi remembers pacing around in a cold sweat while Yamato had just lain there, totally cool, giving him the ‘what the fuck is wrong with you?’ look that he’s so good at giving.

But now it already feels completely natural – like if they could just do this forever, Taichi would be fine with that.

“If they were going to choose – a murderer, I mean – then you would definitely be a better victim,” Yamato is saying, “You have no sense of stranger danger. You’re way too trusting.” 

Taichi huffs, reaching for a handful of potato chips. “Not of serial killers.”

“Please. You’d be climbing into the van to go see the guy’s puppy that he told you about.”

“I could fight my way out, though. I’m stronger than you.”

“You want to put that to a test right now?”

Taichi wipes the chip dust from his hands. “Are you coming onto me?” he says, half-joking. But he’s already starting to get hard again just at the thought of getting his hands on Yamato and showing him again exactly how well he can hold him down.

Yamato doesn’t move, but his expression changes, back to that different person he becomes. Apparently that wasn’t where he’d been going with that, but it is now. “I might be,” he says.

He stays where he is, waiting for Taichi to come to him. And Taichi does, shifting down the couch, until their bare knees are touching, and he can slide his hand to the back of Yamato’s neck and brush their lips together – not kissing yet, just the barest tease of skin on skin.

It’s not the kind of competitive shit they usually start with, not in keeping with their flirting just now, but Taichi finds that he suddenly wants to be gentle. He wants to push Yamato down into the couch cushions slowly, so he does, he wants to make every touch soft, so he does that too. He’s kind of interested to see how Yamato will react – if he’ll start hassling him to pick up the pace. If he’ll complain if Taichi calls him ‘baby’.

But just as Yamato usually knows just the right way to push him, this time he seems to read that they’re doing something different. He’s loose in Taichi’s arms, moving in mirror image – leaning back as Taichi presses forwards, tilting his head left when Taichi goes right. When he drags his lips over Taichi’s cheek, the touch is feather-light, a signal that he is open, leaving space for wherever Taichi wants to take things next.

And Taichi doesn’t know where that might be. It feels like it could be somewhere important.

He doesn’t get to find out, though. Before he can make his next move, an almighty ‘boom’ rings through the apartment, startling them both. It’s the type of sound you don’t want to hear; the type of sound that never means anything good. It’s the sound of an explosion. Of disaster. Of danger. They’ve both heard too many sounds like that in the past to not be instantly sitting bolt upright, poised to run, or to fight, whichever they need to do.

“What was that?” Yamato says.

Taichi is staring down the dark hallway that leads to the bedrooms, the direction his gut is telling him the sound came from, even though the reverb made it seem like the noise was all around. Explosions always sound like they’re all around.

“I don’t know. I’m going to check,” he says, standing up. “Wait here.”

“Are you joking? I’m coming.”

Taichi is annoyed for a split second, has the instinct to shove Yamato back down again and try make him stay, but then he remembers who he’s talking to.

He nods, and together they head slowly out of the living room, pausing at the doorway to Taichi’s parents’ room. There’s a balcony at the far side of this room and Taichi is sure that’s where the sound came from. 

Everything feels still, so it probably wasn't an earthquake. But there are things out there that are worse than natural disasters, and Taichi’s not thinking of ghosts, or murderers. He’s very aware that they are alone right now. No partners here to rush to their rescue.

Behind him, there is the faint sing of metal and when he looks back he finds that Yamato has drawn a couple of golf clubs out of the caddy that Taichi’s dad keeps in the corner. 

Without a word, he hands one of the irons over, and Taichi tests the weight of it in his hand, reassured by how heavy and solid it feels. Weapon-like.

There’s no sign of anything amiss and Taichi’s just starting to relax his grip on the club in bewilderment, when the sudden whine of some missile tearing through the air makes his every muscle tense. He jerks the club aloft and can feel Yamato right there behind him, taut with the same ready energy. 

But then the dark room is filled suddenly with light, and colour, as the sky beyond the windows explodes with a scattering of fireworks.

Taichi stares at the showers of red and green stars, confused for a second about what he is looking at. Then he laughs and lowers his club, the metal head hitting the tatami with a muffled thud. 

“Oh my god. We’re morons,” Yamato says, sagging with relief. He drops his club completely, so that it tumbles to the ground.

“No, we’re damaged,” Taichi tells him. He points at the windows. “This, right here, is what PTSD since childhood looks like.”

Yamato shakes his head. “Tell me about it.”

The fireworks are coming thick and fast now. The first must have just been a test, or a mistake. Smoke from the gunpowder is clinging to the still-damp air. The sparks overlap, each glittering flash showing up a second before the crash that follows it.

They are so close; it must be a display in the park on the corner, though Taichi never heard anything about that. He would have suggested they go down to watch. Though actually, the view is better up here.

Not caring about the smoke, he throws open the balcony door and steps out, so busy staring at the lights in the sky that he doesn’t realise he is still holding onto his golf club until he feels Yamato gently taking it out of his hand, so he can lean it against the wall, out of the way.

“They always make me feel like a kid,” Taichi says, and Yamato nods, coming to lean next to him against the railings.

“They’re amazing,” he says, turning his face up as he follows the path of the next firework, which shoots up into the sky with a shrill whistle before erupting in a thunderous shower of icy white stars. 

The next one is blue. Then red. And then Taichi realises that he’s not watching the fireworks anymore. He’s watching Yamato – how the colours reflect across his face; how the lights dance in his eyes. And on the tip of his tongue are words that he has never considered saying to someone before. 

He thinks them, quite clearly. But he doesn’t say them out loud.

Instead he turns back to the sky and makes himself pay attention to the flashes and bangs, until the display is over, and they can hear the sound of applause ringing distantly from the park below.

*

_October_

The thing is, Taichi hasn’t stopped thinking those words. In fact, he thinks them all the time. More than once, he comes really fucking close to saying them, but catches himself just in time, because that is not what they agreed this was about.

He can see exactly how it would go: he’ll say “I love you.” Yamato will freeze up. Then shut down. Then shut him out. The end.

It won’t even be an argument. It will simply be a door slamming in his face. Taichi knows how Yamato responds to things. If he wants to keep him, then saying shit like that is certainly not the way to do it. 

But maybe he’s made a mistake in letting there be too much of a sense of freedom. Maybe overcompensating with Michiko to show Yamato that he’s not trying to tie him down (and convince himself that he’s not already in this way too deep) has been the wrong move. 

Which is his totally his style, after all. Taichi is the king of wrongs moves. They always seem right at the time, but when he sits down and thinks about them afterwards, they usually seem embarrassingly stupid.

So, yeah. Maybe he’s fucked up. And now he doesn’t know which step to take next. Come clean, or double down. What course of action comes with the least collateral damage? He doesn’t know.

Wandering the streets of Tokyo, shoulder to shoulder with the crowds, Taichi wonders if this is the kind of problem he can take to Koushiro: lay all the stupidity out in front of him and wait for him to carve out a sensible path to follow.

Probably it’s not. Probably it’s the type of annoying thing he has to fix by himself.

Unfortunately, Taichi has no frame of reference for how you make things right with a childhood friend who you are turned on by dominating, terrified of losing, and also (he’s pretty sure) hopelessly in love with.

But as he walks through the city, two things slowly become clear. One: Taichi needs to be the one to fix this, because fixing relationships is definitely not Yamato’s vibe.

Two: all of this has not happened because Yamato has some mysterious power of knowing how to give Taichi exactly what he wants in bed. It’s way simpler than that. Taichi just wants Yamato. He probably always has.


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> HAPPY NEW YEAR GUYS. Do one, 2020.
> 
> Ok, we are getting there with this story now. Only a couple of parts left. And just a casual reminder that I basically don't really know what canon is anymore.

_October_

At rehearsal on Saturday afternoon, Yamato completely loses his shit. They’re trying to nail the four-part harmonies on this unnecessarily complicated new number – Koji has written it, the pretentious fuck – and Tomohiro has so far been sharp every time. The sound of that wrong note is niggling away, like a mosquito buzzing around Yamato's head.

Then, the one time that Tomohiro gets it right, Kentaro fluffs his note instead.

“Holy fuck, what is wrong with you all?” Yamato snaps, kicking the bottom of his mic stand, so that it topples and clatters to the ground.

His three bandmates stare at the quivering metal and then slowly all raise their gazes to him.

“Wow,” Tomohiro says, at the same time that Koji goes: “Ok, Miss Houston.”

Yamato knows that he’s being overdramatic, but he’s been wound tight since the argument with Taichi that morning. He didn’t even want to rehearse today, but they don’t have a choice, because they have a big gig in barely two weeks and they still haven’t managed to play through their set list without screwing it up.

“It’s like how many times do we need to do this? Has nobody else practised? Can nobody else sing a fucking note?” 

“I’m sorry,” Kentaro says.

“Don’t apologise to him,” says Koji. “He’s being a dick right now.”

Yamato pinches the bridge of his nose and breathes out slowly. He can hear his phone buzzing in the corner on top of his guitar case and doesn’t want to think about what he’s going to have to deal with when he goes to pick it up, whether it’s going to be Taichi or Akira or some other mess.

“What’s up with you today?” Tomohiro asks, coming over to right the mic stand, which makes Yamato feel bad enough to snap out of his anger.

“Don’t. I’ve got it,” he says, making his voice calmer, crouching to pick up the stand before Tomohiro can.

“Seriously. Did you fall out with your stupid jock boyfriend or something?” says Koji. “Because you can leave that shit at the door.”

“Not my boyfriend,” Yamato says, for the millionth time, as he jerks the stand back into alignment.

Kentaro is staring at him. “You want to take a break?” he says. 

Yamato sighs and runs a hand through his hair, which feels damp with sweat at the roots. The rehearsal room is way too warm today. 

“No,” he says. “Sorry. I’m over it. Let’s go again.”

There’s a pause, where he can feel the other three guys exchanging looks. Then he hears the creaking of stool legs as Tomohiro sits back down and bends to pick up his drumsticks from the floor. “I’ll give us two bars in,” he says, before his snare drum starts tapping.

It takes them another three tries to get the harmonies right, but Yamato doesn’t lose his temper again. When the four notes merge just so, the sound washes over him like relief. But instead of celebrating, the way the others do, he just closes his eyes, and clenches his fingers around the mic stand, feeling the metal grooves of the adjustment mechanisms biting into his skin. He stands there like that and waits for them to get over their excitement and tell him its time to run it again, which is exactly what they do. 

“Yes. Again,” Koji announces, strumming confidently at the bass he has slung across his body. These days, he’s doing more of their writing, and since his songs are more vocally demanding, Yamato’s been playing less, singing more, while Koji’s been picking up the bass instead.

Things with the band have stepped up a gear this year. Partly it’s because Koji and Kentaro have both decided that they’re going to pursue legitimate careers in music. They’ve both been accepted to university programmes that start next year – Koji’s is one of the most prestigious in the country. 

Tomohiro’s not quite so serious about it all, but he has that thing that Taichi has from the soccer team, that sportsman’s dedication to the cause. Besides, he’s the drummer. Drummers are allowed to be fuck-ups.

As for Yamato, he doesn’t know what he wants. There’s a big part of him that doesn’t even care. Sometimes he finds himself in the middle of a rehearsal, listening to the others argue over the set list for a show, feeling like he’s looking down on himself from above: standing there bored, with a microphone in his hand, waiting to be told what to sing, so that he can just leave already and go do something else. 

It’s not that music doesn’t matter to him. That couldn’t be further from the truth. Music is everything. But ever since the band has been getting more attention, there’s been a unsettled feeling building up inside of him. It's the same feeling he gets if he’s been dating someone too long. Some warning instinct kicks in to let him know it’s time to move on, before he gets sucked into something he doesn’t have the power to get out of again.

That’s how the band makes him feel these days. Like he’s two steps away from deleting their numbers from his phone and ghosting the shit out of them all.

“Hey man,” Kentaro calls, catching up to him as Yamato is leaving the rehearsal, later on.

Yamato already has his phone out of his pocket and has caught a glimpse of several message alerts that he doesn’t want to deal with, but he stops and looks up as Kentaro jogs up to him. 

“You got a minute?” Kentaro asks, shifting his guitar case from one shoulder to the other,

“I’m meeting my brother,” Yamato says and shrugs the strap of his own guitar case more comfortably into place. He still brings his bass to rehearsals, even if he usually hardly touches it.

“That’s cool. I can walk and talk.”

They head off together, towards the trains, Yamato pocketing his phone again as they go, relieved to have an excuse not to look at it. “What’s up?” he asks.

Kentaro glances at him sideways. “I wanted to check in,” he says, “See if you were all right.” 

“I’m fine.”

“Are you sure?” Kentato asks and Yamato hesitates, briefly wondering if he could open up to him. It was just the two of them at the start. One bass, one guitar. Everything else grew from there. Yamato considers him a good friend. 

“You know, if you want to play again, then I can talk to Koji,” Kentaro says. 

“Don’t worry. I’m honestly just having a bad day,” Yamato tells him.

“Seriously. I can take lead more. I don’t have what you have, but I can do it,” Kentaro presses. “We just thought it makes sense to have you in front. Your voice is the strongest and it’s what people are used to from that video.”

Yamato nods, fighting the urge to roll his eyes, because this is where all the latest attention is coming from: the video they put out. The one that’s just hit six figures in Myspace views.

“I get it,” Yamato says. “There’s worse things than being a teen idol.”

Silence falls between them as they pause to wait for the lights of a pedestrian crossing.

“You know, it’s not too late to apply for a music school next year,” Kentaro says, carefully. “You could stay right here in Tokyo and go to TUA. I bet you’d get in.”

Yamato checks his watch. Takeru will probably already be at the restaurant. “I don’t know. That’s kind of a serious school.”

“I can help you with your application.” Kentaro leans sideways, knocking Yamato’s shoulder with his own. “I don’t think they’d hold being a teen idol against you.”

“Thanks. I’ll think about it,” Yamato lies, as the lights change and they start walking again. 

They split up when they reach the station. Yamato needs to walk down the street to catch a bus while Kentaro is taking the subway. 

“And don’t worry – I’m sure you’ll patch things up with Taichi,” Kentaro tells him, as they are saying goodbye, which is fucking annoying, because Yamato definitely hasn’t told him that he and Taichi are fighting, and he doesn’t know why everyone keeps assuming that’s what’s wrong with him.

It’s not just his bandmates either. When Yamato sits down opposite Takeru ten minutes later, at a table in their favourite hotpot restaurant, it’s practically the first thing out of his brother’s mouth.

“Did something happen with Taichi?” Takeru says, looking up from the menu, with concern in his eyes.

Yamato scowls and takes his phone out of his pocket. Besides messages from Takeru, confirming their plans, there are two alerts from Akira that Yamato hasn’t bothered to read. Nothing from Taichi.

“Why does everyone think the second I’m not smiling, it must have to do with him?”

Takeru holds up his hands in defence. “Hey, law of averages. That’s all.”

They both study their menus. After a moment, Takeru prompts: “So, is it about Taichi?” 

“Yes,” Yamato says, through gritted teeth. “We had an argument.”

“About what?”

Yamato runs his tongue over his top teeth and inhales through his nose. He’s not about to tell Takeru that he and Taichi are fighting because he decided to fuck some random guy to deliberately make Taichi jealous. 

“It’s complicated.”

Takeru sighs. “It always is.” He pushes his menu in Yamato’s direction. “You want to order? Or shall I?”

“I got it,” Yamato says, standing. 

He takes the menus and goes to place their order at the bar. When he returns to the table, his phone is vibrating and Takeru is leaning forwards, craning his neck to see the display on the screen.

“He’s calling you,” he says, looking up at Yamato expectantly.

Yamato slides into his seat and turns the phone over, so that the screen flashing Taichi’s name is facing the tabletop. 

“I’ll speak to him later,” he says. He picks up the pair of single-use chopsticks in front of him, and snaps them apart, ready to eat. “Tell me what’s going on with you.”

It’s not long before a waiter brings over a steaming pot of broth and dishes of meat and vegetables. They chat through the clouds of steam, Takeru doing most of the talking: what’s happening at school, why Daisuke is an idiot, all the books he’s reading, how weird their mother’s new boyfriend is. It’s comforting to listen to him talk. Yamato nods away, smiling where he’s supposed to smile, laughing where he’s supposed to laugh.

The whole time, his attention keeps sliding to his face-down phone. He doesn’t want to think about Taichi. But he can’t help himself. 

It’s only when he and Takeru have said goodbye, outside on the street corner, that Yamato finally gives the alerts on his phone his attention. There’s a low wall, just beside the restaurant. He leans his guitar case up against it and then sits down on it to concentrate on cleaning up his mess.

First: Akira. His watch is still on the coffee table, back at Yamato’s apartment, but his messages don’t make any mention of that. Instead, he’s asking if Yamato wants to see a movie next week. Yamato answers that question by ignoring it and instead types: _I hope you didn’t leave your watch at my house as an excuse to see me again. Because that’s lame._

Akira must have his phone right by him, because he replies instantly.

_That’s a great trick! Have to remember that one!_

And then, a second later: _oh shit do you actually have my watch? Thought I lost it_

 _I have it_ , Yamato types, _I’ll bring it to school on Monday._

There is a pause and Yamato wonders if Akira is going to push the movie thing. But, because Akira is apparently the most laidback person to ever live, he doesn’t. Instead, another message pops up that simply says: _Cool thanks_

That’s one down. The easy one. Taichi next. He has left a voicemail. 

The first thing Yamato hears when he puts the phone to his ear is wind; it's like trying to listen to a seashell. And when Taichi speaks, his voice is jumping slightly, as though he’s on the move.

“Hi,” Taichi says, “I know you don’t want to talk to me… and that you’ll probably ignore this message for as long as you can before you even listen to it…”

Yamato frowns at that, staring at the flashing lights of some bar across the street. He can hear the bustle of a crowd of people in the background to Taichi’s pause. So he’s out in the city too.

“...but we still have that assignment due,” Taichi continues, in his ear. “And I thought that maybe we should call a truce or something? To get it done. We don’t have to be ready to talk about anything else. Just tick the boxes. What do you say? We’re good at truces. Call me when you… well, not when you get this. Call me when you actually listen to it.”

That’s where the message ends. Yamato lowers the phone. He watches as two girls embrace outside the bar in front of him, beaming and happy to see one another. The sky has turned indigo and a shadowy moon is just becoming visible above the bar’s tiled roof. It's a waning gibbous moon; a moon that looks full of possibility.

Before he can overthink it, Yamato pulls up his message thread with Taichi and types: _Ok, truce. Let’s meet._

*

_September_

When they first post the music video, it seems like a good thing. Koji’s sister, who’s a film student at university, helps them with the production. The track sounds great. And once they start getting interest from a couple of people in the business, putting it out seems even more like the right decision.

At the same time, the comments are rolling in. Most of them are complimentary, it’s not like they’re getting slated, but people aren’t always commenting on the music either. It isn’t a total shock. Yamato’s under no illusions: his looks are entirely his best asset. It’s something he’s been told his entire life. This is just the same as how things are at school. People see him a certain way, because of how he looks.

The cynical part of him says that it’s not the right way to reach the top. That it’s selling out. But he doesn’t hear the other guys complaining. They all think that if they can rake in enough cash now, while they’re still young, they’ll be able to live the life of serious artists later on, capitalising on their existing fame and releasing all kinds of experimental, heartfelt crap.

And anyway, what else is Yamato going to do with his life? He’s not smart like Jyou or Koushiro; he doesn’t have the kind of social skills that Taichi and Sora have. Instead, people want to fuck him. That’s what he’s got going for him. The video is an uncomfortable reminder of that.

The only comments about how he looks that Yamato feels good about come from Taichi, but those don’t appear below the video. They come in person, or in messages that are only meant for him to see.

 _Yama-CHAN. Check you, boy. Such hot shit_ , Taichi sends, the first time he sees the video. 

Yamato smiles when he sees the message. He’s heading back home from rehearsal, and it’s nice to get some feedback that doesn’t make him want to cringe. 

He adjusts the guitar strap on his shoulder and glances up to check the crossing light is still red, before selecting the poo emoji and hitting send. 

_Tell me honestly,_ he types after that, _Is it too much?_

Taichi replies immediately, with a string of messages:

 _No way, I love it.  
_ _We need to celebrate  
_ _I’m taking you out tonight  
_ _Wear something tight_

 _Like you?_ Yamato types.

 _OH SNAP_ _  
__Seriously. Shibuya.  
_ _I want to party._

All around Yamato, a wave of pedestrians begins to move. He looks up and starts walking, typing as he goes: _I can party_.

_Don't I know it_

Safely across the road, Yamato heads for the station and juggles his train pass out of his pocket, swapping his phone from hand to hand as he types, already smirking at what Taichi’s reaction might be: _Come to my place. I want to fuck first._

 _Nah_ _  
__UM OBVIOUSLY YES_

The platform is crowded, but the guitar acts as a kind of battering ram. Yamato just has to turn his shoulder and he can slide pretty easily along the length of the platform, until he reaches the exact door that he knows will let him off closest to the station exit at the other end.

 _I bought vodka,_ he types.

 _Sweet. Vodka makes you easy,_ Taichi replies. 

_Easier_.

_Riiiiiiiiiight?_

_Later. Getting on the train_

_Smooches xxxxx_

Yamato slips his phone back into his pocket. From the outside, the way the way that he and Taichi are with each other probably doesn’t make any sense. They must seem so dysfunctional. But they have something that works for them. Most people don’t understand it, and Yamato likes that they don’t.

He doesn’t realise how much he’s smiling until he notices commuters giving him confused looks. But then the train is pulling up and everyone is putting their heads down and lowering their gazes, ready for the inevitable forwards crush towards the doors.

And so what if he spends the entire train ride thinking about the things that he and Taichi are going to do? So what if he gets irrationally angry when he finally makes it home only to find the lights are on and the TV is blaring, because his father has decided to be there? And so what if his angry mood continues, until he opens the front door an hour later and sees Taichi smiling at him from the doorstep, with that stupid dimple in his cheek and his eyes bright in the evening light. 

“Tadaima,” Taichi says, and Yamato feels something warm flicker through him at the word, a feeling like he is the one coming home.

“Okaeri,” he returns, stepping aside, to let Taichi in. “I'm making yaki soba. It's nearly ready.”

“Amazing.” Taichi leans in to kiss him, but Yamato stops him with a hand to the shoulder.

“My dad’s here.”

“Fuck. Really?”

“I know.”

Taichi puffs his cheeks out, in a frustrated exhale. But he quickly shakes the disappointment off and steps up into the apartment, plastering on a winning smile as he goes. 

Yamato feels his own mood lift a little at that, because now it’s not on him to handle everything. His dad loves Taichi. Dinner will be so much easier with Taichi here. 

Sure enough, the two of them have already launched into some chat about baseball by the time Yamato has closed the door and headed back through the apartment. He goes to the fridge and takes out another beer, which he passes to Taichi in full view of his dad, because his dad simply doesn’t care about stuff like that, before he goes back to give the noodles a final toss.

“He's a good housewife, right?” his dad jokes to Taichi, loud enough that Yamato is supposed to hear it.

“No-one else will do it. I don't see why I should starve just because you don't know how to look after us,” Yamato calls over his shoulder, lifting the wok and beginning to dish the food onto plates. 

Taichi cracks open his beer and lifts it. “Cheers to that,” he says, as Yamato is carrying over all three plates in one go. 

The TV is still blaring in the background, and so is the radio, which Yamato had playing in the kitchen. The apartment is always like this. Constant background noise.

Hiroaki stubs out his cigarette in the old coffee cup that he uses as an ash tray and eyes up the plates of noodles that Yamato has set down. “Is this all I get? You both have twice as much as me," he says. 

Yamato picks up his chopsticks. “You told me yesterday you have to start watching your weight because of your cholesterol. And that I’m not allowed to sabotage you.” 

“I did not say that.”

“Those were your exact words. ‘Don’t you sabotage me like your mother would’.”

“Bring the pan,” his dad says. “I need more than this.”

“I’ll get it,” Taichi says, pushing his chair backwards, before Yamato can even start to get mad, let alone move. He fetches the wok and sets it down in the middle of the table, touching Yamato casually on the shoulder as he does so. 

“Thanks,” Yamato says.

Taichi winks at him and then sits down and puts his palms together. “Itadakimasu.” 

“What are you boys doing tonight?” Hiroaki is already digging into his noodles, but Yamato swears that he sees his dad’s gaze flick over to Taichi’s hand as it moves away from his shoulder.

“We’re going out,” Yamato says, ignoring the glance.

“Out where?”

“I don’t know.”

“Who with?”

“Ourselves.”

“When will you be back?”

Yamato shrugs. His dad stares at him for a moment, before he grunts and turns back to his food. “Well, behave yourselves. Don’t take any pills people offer you.”

“I did that one time. And you wouldn’t even have known about it if Takeru hadn’t said anything,” Yamato protests, and then glares at Taichi, who is laughing into his noodles.

“I’ll probably stay at the office. So if you end up dead in a gutter, I won’t know about it until morning. Just bear that in mind when you’re making your choices,” his dad says.

“Mr Ishida’s parenting masterclass,” Taichi says, with a grin. 

Yamato’s dad swigs from his can of beer and then gestures towards Yamato with it. “Hey. Is he or is he not turning out alright?”

“Yeah, he seems ok,” Taichi says, and all of a sudden Yamato can’t look at him, because he’s worried about what his dad might see in his face if he does. 

“The only reason I’m not a total mess is because of Tai’s influence, not yours,” Yamato says, eyes fixed on his food.

“Well hooray for Taichi,” Hiroaki says and then inclines his head in Taichi’s direction.“Hear that? It’s on you to make sure he’s not dead in a gutter by the end of the night.”

Taichi salutes smartly. He is already reaching for the pan of noodles, but pauses with the serving spoon halfway to his plate, looking up at Hiroaki. “Oh. Sorry. Can I have more?”

“Yes,” Yamato tells him, before his dad can answer. “You can.”

*

Despite his promises to stay the night at the office, Yamato’s dad seems in no rush to get there. Once they are done eating, he doesn't move from the table. He just stretches his legs out across the floor and leans back in his chair, eyes glued to the TV set in the corner. In fact, he's lighting another cigarette, which probably means he's here for the duration.

Yamato closes his bedroom door, shutting out the sight and the sound of him. 

He hasn’t bothered to turn on the bedroom lights, and with the door closed, there’s nothing to see by but the cold evening glow of the windows, all that city light pollution, bouncing off the overcast sky. 

Taichi goes over and turns on the lamp by the bed, which makes the room feel instantly warmer. 

It’s weird, having the time and space to worry about things like whether the lights are on or off. They are so used to being together in a rush that Yamato almost doesn’t know how to start when he actually has time to think about it. 

He draws the curtains closed, opens his desk drawer and takes out the small bottle of vodka stashed there. “You still want this?”

Taichi shrugs and looks around the room. “Is there any music? It feels quiet,” he says.

He drifts over to Yamato’s stereo and starts rifling through the stacks of CDs. Yamato hurries to steady a particularly precarious pile of cases, then nudges Taichi out of the way and starts going through the albums himself, looking for something Taichi-appropriate. 

“I don’t have any trance, in case you’re thinking we’re going to have a rave in here,” he says.

“I don’t always want to rave.”

“Only mostly. What shall I put on?”

“Something you like.” Taichi is shifting about, rocking on his feet, peering over Yamato’s shoulder, because he can’t ever just be still. “You know, half the guys on my soccer team think you’re my boyfriend,” he says, out of nowhere.

Yamato stares at the track listing on the back of a case. Discards it. “Did you tell them that’s not what we are?”

“Of course.” 

Looking through every album is boring. There’s a stack of mixtapes on top of one of the speakers, so Yamato grabs the top one, checks the back to make sure that he’s not about to fill the room with his own voice and then slots the disc into the player. Radiohead. ‘Fake Plastic Trees’. Not the worst choice. 

He turns around, and is surprised by how close Taichi is, even though he already knew he was right there.

"What?" he says, because Taichi's giving him this weird look.

“Your face is so symmetrical,” Taichi says. “It’s perfect.” He lifts his hand to very gently touch Yamato’s cheek with his fingertips, and Yamato finds himself leaning back from the touch.

“That’s a really weird thing to tell me,” he says. Because it is. “Symmetrical? Is that the kind of shit you say to girls? Because if it is then it's no wonder you’re always single.”

Taichi shakes his head, half amused, half exasperated. “I’m trying to compliment you.”

Yamato stares at him, trying to read what’s going on behind his eyes. Taichi thinks he’s the one running things, but he’s not. Not really. Not all the way. That’s smoke and mirrors. Yamato knows how to get exactly what he wants out of their hookups. And right now, he needs this bullshit to stop so that he can get off before his dad finds some way to interrupt them.

He puts one hand on Taichi’s chest, palm flat, feeling the reassuring solidity of ribs and muscle. There is something about being with Taichi that makes Yamato feel hyper present, as if parts of his brain that aren’t being used the rest of the time are suddenly lighting up. 

He presses forwards, leading with his hand, stepping Taichi backwards until the backs of his thighs hit the mattress, forcing him to sit. Once he’s down, Yamato straddles his thighs and lowers himself into his lap, resting hands on his shoulders. 

And that’s all it takes to get things back where he wants them.

“Hey baby,” Taichi says, smiling up at him. His hands fall to Yamato’s waist, fingertips already pushing up under the hem of his shirt to touch skin.

“Hi there,” Yamato says, and kisses him, reaching down as he does so. He pushes the heel of his hand against the growing bulge that he finds between Taichi’s legs, drawing a groan out of him that goes straight to Yamato’s cock.

As usual, as soon as he can feel Taichi’s dick in his hand, things don’t seem to be moving fast enough. Yamato has to hold himself back from rushing. He’s desperate to get to the point where he can forget everything and let go completely, loose and sweating in Taichi’s arms. 

Their kiss deepens. Their tongues slide together, wet and smooth. Yamato can feel the nip of Taichi’s canines against his bottom lip. He threads his fingers through Taichi’s thick hair and tugs sharply, tilting his head to a better angle. Taichi takes it, but he digs his fingers hard into Yamato’s sides in return, his nails biting. 

Taichi pushes his hips up as Yamato pushes down, making them both gasp into each other’s mouths. It’s a good tease, the press of their erections through their clothes, so they do it again. Yamato pushes down, and Taichi meets the thrust, one hand sliding up to find better leverage, gripping the back of Yamato’s neck.

Yamato is already thinking about the last time, in Taichi’s room, up against the door, and decides he wants that again, even if his dad is here. They’ll find some way to make it work. The thought of Taichi’s hard dick driving inside of him is worth the risk.

He has just leant forwards and whispered those exact words in Taichi’s ear, and Taichi has just made this noise of want in the back of his throat, something feral and delicious, when Yamato’s dad actually does interrupt them.

His knock at the door seems magnified by the sexual tension in the room. The sound gives them just enough time to spring apart and cover themselves as inconspicuously as they can before Hiroaki throws open the door, brandishing the TV remote.

“This goddamn new cable. How’s it supposed to work?” he says, loudly, and then pauses, glancing around the room as though suddenly realising that something is different.

“Dad,” Yamato snaps, probably not cool enough to dispel any mounting suspicions. “Are you serious? I’ve shown you so many times.”

Hiroaki is looking at Taichi, but his gaze quickly moves back to Yamato. “Sorry,” he says, and then, like he’s not quite sure what he’s apologising for, more gruffly, “It’s saying something about ‘no input’.”

There’s no better boner killer than feeling pissed off at a parent who can’t manage to work simple technology. Yamato stands up and snatches the remote control from his father’s hand.

“God, you work at a TV station,” he says, marching past and out into the living room, where the TV screen is showing some weird blue menu that Yamato’s never seen before, because only his dad could manage to be home for one night and during that time fuck up not only Yamato’s sex life, but also his precious TV set-up.

Ten minutes of arguing and back-seat driving from both his dad and Taichi later, the TV is working again, and Yamato is sitting on the balcony, wondering if he can get away with smoking a cigarette while his dad is literally right here in the house. Going back to his room to try again seems like a lost cause now. And the idea of going out to party while they’re both still sexually frustrated just feels annoying.

Instead they kick back, leaning against the railings and smelling the familiar city air: car exhaust and food, mixed with the fresh scent of the bay.

“This sucks,” Taichi says, resting his temple against one of the bars of the railings and looking at Yamato with his big, dark eyes. Yamato mirrors the movement and looks back at him. 

“I’ve been thinking about fucking you all day,” Taichi says. “Longer than that. I’ve been thinking about it since you first sent me that video.”

Yamato hisses out a breath and turns his face, so that the cool metal of the railing is pressed against his hot cheek. Now he really needs a cigarette. “The video,” he says.

“What about it?” Taichi extends one leg, so that it is stretched out besides Yamato on the concrete, bracketing him in. Yamato resists the urge to put his hand on Taichi’s thigh, because he knows where that will lead. He chews at his bottom lip, thinking about the video instead.

“I didn’t think it was going to take off like that."

“I’m not surprised,” Taichi says. “You look damn hot in it.”

"That's just it. Some of the comments are kind of…” Yamato trails off. It seems weird to pick this exact moment to turn prudish, sitting with the guy he was just grinding his hard dick against barely thirty minutes ago. “I don’t know.”

“You know everyone likes you,” Taichi says.

“I don’t get why.”

“Look in a mirror. Oh wait, you already do that about a million times a day.”

Yamato puts his own leg out, so that he can kick Taichi in the shin – a warning kick, barely hard enough to make him wince. “I do not. I wouldn’t even be that hot anywhere else. It’s just because we live in Japan and I look different.”

Taichi rubs at his leg with his fingers, vaguely in the area that Yamato got him. “No way. You’d be hot anywhere,” he says, holding Yamato’s gaze, until Yamato is the one to look away.

The apartment is on the right side of the building – the expensive side. Instead of overlooking wall-to-wall apartment blocks, there is a clear slice of sky, running straight to the bay, a glimpse of the water and the stars stretching out up above.

“I don’t mind you thinking that,” Yamato says, staring at the pinpricks of light in the sky, picking out the four points of Pegasus and the rust-tinted gleam of Mars. “At least you know there’s something else to me.”

Taichi is quiet for a moment. His sneakers squeak against the concrete as he shifts closer, moving to look over Yamato’s shoulder. He still doesn’t say anything, so Yamato lifts his arm and points at the night sky. 

“Can you see the summer triangle? It’s here. The three brightest ones: Vega, Deneb and Altair.” Yamato points each star out in turn, moving his finger so that Taichi can look along his arm and find them.

“There’s definitely a lot more to you,” Taichi says quietly, and when Yamato looks at him, he isn’t prepared for the feeling that washes over him: something warm and safe and also completely terrifying. Yamato is fully aware that this is the point where he would usually bail out of things. But how can he bail out on Taichi?

Like he knows exactly where Yamato's thoughts are going, Taichi clears his throat and dials it back a notch. “It’s so bright here,” he says. “Do you remember the digital sky? How many more stars you could see?”

“They were different stars,” Yamato says, glad of the excuse to look away from Taichi and turn his eyes back up to the sky. “But yeah. Layers and layers of them. It would look like that here if we weren’t in a city. If we stood in the middle of some desert, or whatever, you could see whole galaxies.”

“Let’s do that,” Taichi says.

Yamato snorts. “Go to a desert?”

“Who’s going to stop us?”

“Nobody, I guess.”

“That’s right.” 

Taichi glances back at the door to the apartment, checking the coast is clear, before he leans in and kisses Yamato. For once, the kiss is not a precursor to anything. It’s just a kiss for the sake of kissing. A kiss to say: I see you. 

Yamato finds himself parting his lips and closing his eyes, letting himself be caught up in the emotion, just for a moment, before he tilts his head away, breaking them apart.

“It’s late,” he says, looking down.

“You’re right,” Taichi says, and then gets to his feet, all smooth, no awkward effort involved. “Your dad’s going to think we’ve absailed down. Which, by the way, we could definitely also try some time.”

“You’re unhinged,” Yamato tells him, accepting the hand that Taichi offers to him, even though he hardly needs the help to stand up. He just wants to feel the strength of Taichi’s fingers in his own.

They say goodbye at the door. Once Taichi is gone, Yamato finds himself standing and staring at the empty porch. For just a moment, he allows himself to wonder if maybe this could actually work. But he shakes the thought away and heads back into the apartment to slump listlessly down on the couch beside his dad.

“Taichi’s gone?” Hiroaki says, glancing at him.

“Yeah.”

They both stare at the game show playing on TV. The host is yelling at a group of people who are trying to complete some kind of task with plastic balls and giant tubes. It’s trash. Hiroaki clears his throat. “You know he can stay here, right? That’s always fine by me. Taichi's a good kid."

"We're not kids."

"That's true."

Yamato doesn’t say anything else. He just scowls at the TV, not liking the pressure of inevitability that seems to be building around this whole thing. It feels like he’s on some conveyor belt carrying him forwards to a destination that he is not sure he has chosen for himself. Just like with the band and that video.

Even so, there’s something about that evening with Taichi that sticks with him. Nothing happened. They didn’t even fuck. But there was a shift somewhere. 

Yamato is still trying to put his finger on it, the next day at school, when he overhears Michiko complaining to a friend about how she has to make things up to that guy from the soccer team she’s been seeing, because he found out that she kissed Taichi at some gig they went to together and _completely_ overreacted. 

“I mean seriously, he knows that you guys dated. It’s not like you’ve never kissed Taichi before,” her friend says, tossing her hair over her shoulder.

“I _know_ , right? It’s just unreasonable. Takoda needs to calm down already,” Michiko says. “It’s not like we were official.”

And even though Yamato knows he shouldn’t care, knows this is exactly what he asked for, he still can’t stop the sinking feeling in his stomach at the thought of Taichi and Michiko together at that gig, and the realisation that whatever happened between them was important enough for Taichi to not mention the kissing part to him. 

These are the thoughts that are running through his mind on loop when he rounds a corner and runs straight into Akira, who apologises instantly and puts his hands on Yamato to steady him and Yamato finds himself thinking: Ok, this is what happens next.


End file.
